


out of the blue

by suddenlyatiger



Series: out of the blue [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alpha Derek Hale, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Claudia Stilinski is not a Nice Person, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotionally Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, Sheriff Stilinski's Name is John, Stilinski Family Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-12
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-11 06:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 36,374
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15966833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/suddenlyatiger/pseuds/suddenlyatiger
Summary: The three of them are seated at Derek and Stiles' kitchen table when Dad finally does address it."Stiles," he says. "Your mother has been dead for over ten years. There's no way you could've seen her walking around."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just a fair warning: I have no idea where this came from or where it's going, and I have no idea what the update schedule will be.

Later, Stiles will probably be unbelievably grateful for Derek's presence in the moment.

 

Right now though, his mind goes completely blank and it's all he can do to grab onto Derek's arm to keep himself from crashing to the floor of the Wal-Mart.

 

"Stiles!" Derek exclaims. It sounds muffled to Stiles' ears, like Derek is behind glass. He's quick to wrap a strong arm around Stiles' waist, which is good because Stiles' knees buckle and not even his grip on Derek would have kept him standing. Derek doesn't yell, but his voice carries enough so that the woman standing at the end of the aisle hears and whips her head around to look.

 

She locks eyes with Stiles and then everything goes dark.

 

***

 

Stiles opens his eyes to the sight of Derek sitting on the edge of his bed. Derek gives him a small smile when he sees that he's awake.

 

"Hi," Derek says. Stiles' head is throbbing and his chest hurts, but he returns the smile anyway. He looks around a bit to try to figure out his surroundings; it looks like he's in the hospital.

 

"What happened?" He asks, voice hoarse. His throat feels scratchy and he's grateful when Derek produces a bottle of water with a straw. He helps Stiles drink and the water feels good going down. The bottle disappears again when Stiles signals he's had enough.

 

"You passed out, from a panic attack I think," Derek answers, he runs a hand through Stiles' hair. "At Wal-Mart." Stiles briefly revels in the feeling of Derek's fingers in his hair, and then the memory returns to him and he tries to bolt upright into a sitting position.

 

"Derek!" He exclaims. "My dad!" Sitting up so suddenly makes him dizzy and he lists a bit to the side, Derek has to grab him to keep him from toppling over.

 

"I already called your dad," Derek says. "He's on his way."

 

"No," Stiles says, and he can feel his breathing becoming laboured, exacerbating the pain in his chest. "At Wal-Mart."

 

"Your dad wasn't at Wal-Mart," Derek says. "Please lay back down before you pass out again."

 

"The woman," Stiles says. And now his eyes are burning and there's a lump in this throat. "That was my mom! At the other end of the aisle!"

 

And that's, of course, when his father shows up.

 

***

 

_Stiles' mother died when he was ten years old._

_At first, his father explained to him that she had died because she was sick. It was very sudden, and Stiles was so young that he'd never thought to question anything._

_It wasn't until a year later, during the height of the sheriff's struggles with alcohol, that Stiles found out the truth. John had accidentally let slip, while drunk, that Claudia Stilinski hadn't died of an illness, but that she had taken her own life. The sheriff had tried his best to keep the truth from Stiles, and the information had so far managed to stay out of Stiles' world._

_Stiles confronted his father, once he was sober, about what he'd said and finally learned the whole story._

_Claudia had left home one day, while Stiles was at school and John was at work, and had never returned. She'd left a message on the station's answering machine saying goodbye and not to look for her. Of course the whole department immediately started looking._

_A few days later, Claudia's blue Jeep was found parked near the edge of a cliff outside of Beacon Hills, near the ocean. They never found her body, but judging by the message she'd left the officers all assumed she'd jumped. For months, even after the funeral, there was an effort made to locate her body, but it had never resurfaced anywhere._

_John made the decision to try to keep what happened as contained as possible, not exactly easy in a town as small as Beacon Hills, and tell his son that his mother had died of a sudden illness. He hadn't wanted to have to explain suicide to an already distraught 10-year-old._

_After John's drunken slip, he sat Stiles down and explained everything to him; both what happened to Claudia and the reasoning for trying to keep it a secret. Stiles then went off to scour the internet for any mention of what happened, only managing to find a handful of articles about the whole thing._

_He never really found peace with what happened, but he learned to live with the knowledge and move on somewhat._

 

***

 

Stiles has another panic attack in the hospital, though he doesn't pass out this time. Derek and Dad are eventually able to take him home, back to the apartment that he and Derek share, not long after. Dad hasn't said anything about Stiles' assertion that he'd seen his mother – his dead mother – earlier. He hasn't said much of anything, really, and he continues to not say much.

 

The three of them are seated at Derek and Stiles' kitchen table when Dad finally does address it.

 

"Stiles," he says. "Your mother has been dead for over ten years. There's no way you could've seen her walking around." That's his dad: no beating around the bush.

 

"I know," Stiles says, dropping his face in his hands. "It doesn't make any sense, but it really was her. She looked like she did in the pictures we have of her, only she's obviously older. I don't get it either." He'd recognized her profile first, mostly from memory. The woman at Wal-Mart had been frowning at a rack of chips. It had reminded Stiles of his mother contemplating the inside of the fridge when she was wondering what to cook for dinner. After Derek had called Stiles' name and the woman had turned towards them, Stiles had instantly known who he'd been looking at.

 

The hair was slightly thinner and shorter, the face more lined, but he's sure he'd been definitely looking at his mother. He'd looked straight into her eyes, recognizable even from that distance, the same eyes he saw in the mirror every morning. She was definitely older, and definitely _alive_.

 

"Did she say anything to you? Or do anything?" Dad asks. Stiles shakes his head.

 

"What happened to her after I passed out?" He asks, turning to Derek.

 

"I don't know," Derek says. "I don't think she was one of the people who ran over to help when you fell. I know what she looks like from her pictures, I didn't see anyone like that close by."

 

"You didn't see her at all?" John asks.

 

"I saw a woman standing at the other end of the aisle, I didn't get a good look at her," Derek says. Stiles has his hands steepled in front of his face, his elbows resting on the table. He doesn't say anything and he's staring hard at the wall above his father's head. He can feel his thoughts whizzing around in his head, slowly forming a picture of what could be going on. So far, he's not liking it. He starts when Dad gets up from the table with a groan.

 

"I have to go back to the station," he says. "Derek, call me if anything else happens. Stiles, take it easy." He ruffles Stiles' hair as he leaves and the door shuts softly behind him. The apartment is quiet when he leaves.

 

***

 

"They never found her body," Stiles says.

 

It's a few hours later and Stiles and Derek are cuddled on their living room couch. There's a movie playing on the TV, but Stiles isn't watching it. He knows Derek isn't either.

 

"You never really told me about what happened to her," Derek says without missing a beat. Clearly he's been waiting for this.

 

"That's true," Stiles says. Even after Stiles and Derek had started dating - soon after Stiles started college - Stiles had kept pretty quiet about his mother's death. He was quick to share childhood memories of her with Derek, and often talked about how he would never abandon the blue Jeep that had once been hers. He'd never mentioned anything about the circumstances surrounding her death. Stiles doesn't really talk about his mother's death with anyone; including his father and Scott.

 

"She killed herself," Stiles says. Derek nods, he knows this much. "She just... up and left the house one day, drove off to a cliff overlooking the ocean and jumped off. That's what the police figured, anyway, considering what they had to work with."

 

"I'm sorry," Derek says. Stiles snuggles further into his side, seeking warmth. Derek wraps an arm around his shoulders and holds tight.

 

"They searched for her body for months, but they never found it," Stiles says. "It wasn't stranded on the rocks, below the cliff, and it never washed up on shore anywhere." His eyes and throat burn just thinking of this. When he was younger, after he learned the truth, he'd often had nightmares about what his mother's body would look like in death. Her broken form caught on the sharp rocks at the bottom of the cliff, or even scattered around them having blown apart on impact. Her body, blue and bloated from the water, lying lifeless on a sandy beach, just waiting for some unsuspecting jogger or family to stumble across it.

 

Stiles hasn't been to the beach since; can't really stand the sight of the ocean sometimes.

 

"They didn't do dives for it?" Derek asks softly, pulling Stiles out of his own head.

 

"Dad says they tried, but either the waves or the current or something made it really hard to do proper searches," Stiles says. "And even then she probably would've been pulled out to sea."

 

"I suppose," Derek says.

 

"If," Stiles continues, heart pounding, "she actually jumped at all."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's extremely unlikely that I'll be able to put up a new chapter every day, but I had this one finished so I decided to just post it

Stiles says he isn't hungry, but Derek orders a pizza anyway.

 

"Comfort food," is all Derek says when Stiles asks about it. Stiles is silent while Derek orders the pizza and they wait for it to be delivered. Derek doesn't see Stiles this quiet and still very often. It's not a common occurrence for him. Even when he's deep in thought and doing research he's always making some kind of noise or movement.

 

Derek knows that this stillness is usually brought on by heightened negative emotions, and it's never easy to see Stiles like this. It reminds Derek a lot of the Nogitsune, mostly after the possession, when Stiles spent months drowning in guilt and depression. There isn't much that Derek can do when it happens, other than provide support when needed and then wait for it to pass.

 

"I want to make sure this can't be anything supernatural related, before I really throw myself into other options," Stiles says suddenly. His heart is still beating a bit harder and faster than normal.

 

_"If she actually jumped at all."_

 

Yeah, Derek can definitely see the desire to find a supernatural explanation for this. Any mundane theory Derek can think of seem too horrible to contemplate. And Stiles has generally always been able to think further outside the box than anyone, Derek shudders to think of what he's managed to come up with so far.

 

"I can't remember feeling anything off at the store," Derek says with some reluctance. "That rules out the more obvious explanations, I suppose." Stiles nods. Derek catches the smell of pizza coming from somewhere down the hall, right after the sound of the elevator doors opening. He crosses over to the front door to wait for the knock while Stiles lapses back into silence. Stiles doesn't move when the delivery person knocks, and has no reaction to Derek dropping the pizza box on the coffee table in front of where he's sitting.

 

Derek grabs plates and drinks from the kitchen and arranges everything on the coffee table. He flips open the pizza box and turns it towards Stiles before taking a seat next to him on the couch.

 

"Still not hungry," Stiles says, after Derek knocks their knees together to get his attention.

 

"I don't think you had anything to eat since this morning," Derek says. "Now eat a slice before I shove one down your throat."

 

"Or you could shove other things down my throat," Stiles says with an eyebrow waggle and an unconvincing leer. Derek knows his heart isn't in it; Stiles' smile is weak and Derek isn't getting even a hint of arousal or interest from him. Derek says nothing and hands him a slice of pizza, then settles back with his own slice.

 

"Tell me your theories so far," he says.

 

"She wasn't a zombie," Stiles says. "And any other undead creature I can think of doesn't really fit. She didn't even look dead or reanimated, she looked normal. The only experience we've had with people coming back from the dead is with Peter, and I really don't think it's the same situation."

 

"Peter brought himself back from the dead by using a banshee," Derek says. "But that was planned in advance, I'm pretty sure. Your mother killed herself, that kind of implies that she wasn't planning on coming back." Stiles had been chewing a mouthful of pizza, he stops suddenly and swallows hard. Derek wants to kick himself.

 

"Shit, sorry," he says.

 

"No, you're right," Stiles says. He clears his throat roughly and puts his pizza down on the coffee table. Derek puts a hand on the back of Stiles' neck and squeezes gently, Stiles leans into the touch. "I'm pretty sure my mother was human. She wouldn't've had the ability to bring herself back from the dead, even with planning."

 

Derek nods. Stiles has magical abilities and, while neither of them know everything about it, they do know that he inherited them somewhere from the Stilinski side of the family. Stiles had done some research on it years ago, but all he'd really found out was that his father's family had magic in it passed down through the generations, while his mother's family was completely mundane as far as he could find.

 

"There's also the possibility," Stiles continues, "that this could be some sort of doppelgänger or shape shifter, or some other kind of apparition that someone conjured up. But I really can't think of any reason for someone to create a fake version of my mother for me or my dad to accidentally run into. Have we pissed anyone off lately?"

 

"Surprisingly no," Derek says. Things have been quiet in Beacon Hills for years on the supernatural front. The local supernatural population is a generally peaceful bunch and all accounted for in Stiles' extensive 'Things That Go Bump In The Night' records. It's what ultimately ended up giving the younger pack members the confidence to go away to college without worrying that the town would burn down in their absence.

 

"No one's come out of the woodwork with some vendetta against us?" Stiles asks.

 

"Not unless Scott's managed to make a huge mess somewhere and neglected to tell us," Derek says. "Again."

 

Scott and Derek don't really get along, for a variety of reasons. They manage to be civil for Stiles' sake, but that's as far as Derek is willing to go. They had gotten off to a rocky start, understandable considering the circumstances, and their relationship has consistently been the 'one step forward, two steps back' type ever since. The most recent incident, which happened only a year ago, is in the 'two steps back' category. It had resulted in a massive multi-pack drama, Derek accidentally becoming an alpha again, and the former McCall pack splitting into two packs headed by Scott and Derek. It ended up being a whole mess that everyone is still recovering from in varying degrees.

 

Stiles is in Derek's pack. When he's not at school he does full-time duties as the pack's emissary. Sometimes Derek feels guilty about essentially separating Stiles and Scott, but there's still one selfish part of him that delights in it because he gets to have Stiles all to himself without having to deal with Scott's childishness. And he didn't in any way influence Stiles' decision on the matter, Stiles chose him on his own.

 

Stiles and Scott have been working on patching up their relationship in the fallout. Derek knows that Stiles really loves Scott, and he hopes for Stiles' sake that whatever is going on now has nothing to do with Scott.

 

"I double-check everything Scott tells me with Kira now," Stiles says. "According to her, everything is all good." Derek mulls over this for a minute.

 

"Alright," he says. "So what are your theories if this isn't something supernatural?" Stiles takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He draws his feet up on the couch and tips over to press himself more firmly into Derek's side. Derek pulls him into his lap.

 

"I have two," Stiles says into the side of Derek's neck. "Theories. I have two. If this isn't magical or supernatural in some way, there's only two things I can think of. One of them is better than the other, but I don't think that's it. Which sucks because --"

 

"Let's hear them then," Derek says. He generally hates to cut Stiles off, but sometimes he can go on for a while to avoid something that's truly bothering him. Stiles takes another deep breath.

 

"Theory number one," he says. "She did jump, but survived the fall. Somehow. Someone found her before she got washed away and took her to a hospital so she could recover. She somehow lost her memories and didn't remember who she was or that she had a family. So she's just been living life for the past decade with amnesia and this could all turn out alright in the end."

 

"Makes sense," Derek says.

 

"Yeah, except no it doesn't. If there had been a young woman found at the bottom of a cliff who ended up in a coma then it would've definitely made the news. Even after she woke up with amnesia there would be doctors and police trying to figure out her identity. Put it on the news, get the public involved, all that stuff." Derek nods, because Stiles does have a point. "Also I'm pretty sure she recognized me in Wal-Mart."

 

"What's your second theory?"

 

"This is the bad one," Stiles says, pressing his face harder into Derek's neck. His words are more muffled now, but Derek can still understand him. "Thinking this makes me feel like a complete asshole, but it's probably the most likely to be true." He falls silent. A few minutes go by, and Derek doesn't say anything until he suddenly smells salt.

 

"What you said earlier, that maybe she didn't jump." Stiles' next breath comes out as a loud sob and Derek tightens his arms around him.

 

"I want so bad for her to have actually jumped and that she's really been dead this whole time," he forces out. "It makes me feel like a monster, but that's better than her being alive this whole time and being happy somewhere else. Without me and Dad." His tears are soaking Derek's neck and the collar of his shirt, and Derek feels his own eyes start to burn. Derek starts slowly rubbing Stiles' back.

 

"The bad theory is that she faked her own death," Stiles shudders out. "Left me and Dad, and made us and everyone else think that she _killed herself_ so she could start over somewhere else with a new identity."

 

"You never know, you could be wrong. Maybe this is a giant misunderstanding. Or it is supernatural and someone is messing with us."

 

"What if she just abandoned us, Derek?" Stiles asks, voice thick with tears.

 

Derek can't think of anything to say to that.

 

***

 

In the early hours of the next morning, Stiles wakes himself up screaming and crying for the first time in a long while.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> extra warning for a lot of talk of suicide in this chapter

Stiles wakes up, exhausted, around noon.

His eyes feel swollen and heavy, and his mouth is dry. A heavy arm is tight around his middle and it's holding him firmly against a warm, solid chest. He feels warm and safe and mildly bruised, it makes him want to cry for some reason.

"How are you feeling?" Derek's lips brush against the nape of Stiles' neck when he speaks.

"Like I've been hit by a car," Stiles says. He turns around and resituates himself so that his face is buried in Derek's (glorious) chest and one leg is slung over Derek's hips.

"Do you wanna talk about last night?" Derek asks.

"Absolutely not," Stiles says. Derek doesn't press, because he's the best. Stiles doesn't say anything, but memories of his nightmare flash through his mind anyway.

Stiles has always been anxious, and has suffered from nightmares since childhood. They'd been fairly standard at first, and then gotten worse after his mother's death. Those nightmares had been traumatic and horrific, and he'd been nothing but grateful when those finally started to lessen. And then they'd been replaced by entirely new nightmares when werewolves happened. And then the Nogitsune happened and opened up a whole new can of night terrors.

Stiles hadn't actually had a nightmare about his mother since before high school. The pain of her loss never really went away, but he did eventually stop seeing her corpse in his dreams. Last night had been a very unwelcome throwback, and Stiles is starting to dread what his mind will throw at him next. Because he knows there will be more.

Last night's nightmare hadn't been overly traumatic: his mother's bloated corpse standing in a Wal-Mart aisle throwing junk food around while his drunk father cried on the floor. Odd, and not the worst images he's ever conjured up, but still unsettling.

"This might happen a lot," Stiles says. "More than it has been lately, I mean."

"It's alright, we're used to it," Derek says. "And you're always telling me not to be ashamed of my nightmares; the same thing applies to you." Derek is right, Stiles knows he's right. But he and Derek have finally made it to a place where nightmares and night terrors have gradually dwindled down to be a once-in-a-while thing. He'd actually been excited about being able to get a full night's sleep on a semi-regular basis (exams and major assignments notwithstanding).

"If..." Stiles says. "If you found out that one of your family members survived the fire and has been living elsewhere this whole time without contacting you, how would you feel? Not like what happened with Cora, but like someone making a deliberate attempt to keep themselves hidden." Derek doesn’t answer right away. Stiles' thumb starts sweeping back and forth where it's resting on Derek's side, over his ribs.

"I'm not really sure how I'd feel specifically," Derek says. "But I know it definitely wouldn't be good. And it would probably bring back some nightmares for me too. It really is a horrible thing to do to a person."

"I really hope she jumped," Stiles says. It sounds awful saying that out loud, and it feels awful to even think it at all. Stiles has spent nearly the whole time since his mother's death wishing that the whole thing was a mistake and that his mother was really alive. He'd often catch himself staring at doors just waiting for his mother to walk through and give him a hug and tell him that everything would be okay, that it was all a mistake and that she was back now.

But birthdays and anniversaries and holidays went by with no sign of his mother ever returning. Stiles watched his father rely more and more on alcohol to cope, and even after he'd hit his rock bottom of telling Stiles about the suicide, he still struggled with his addiction. The whole thing left scars on the Stilinski family that would never really go away.

Stiles had spent years wishing his mother was still alive, and now he's hoping beyond hope that she's dead after all.

***

_"Did she do it because of me?"_

_John whipped around in his seat at the kitchen table to look at where Stiles was standing in the doorway, looking rumpled and sad in faded Batman pyjamas._

_"What?" He asked, not sure he heard right._

_"Mom," Stiles said. "When she k-killed herself. Was it because of me?" His eyes were red-rimmed and bloodshot, and his lids were a bit swollen. John felt his heart break all over again. This wasn't what he wanted for his son, this was why he'd decided to keep the suicide a secret. He held out his arms to Stiles, who was quick to throw himself into them. He started crying loudly, and all John could think to do was to rock him while he tried to think of a way to answer the question._

_The problem was, John also sometimes wondered if Stiles was the reason Claudia decided to kill herself. Stiles wasn't exactly an easy child, and even John sometimes wished that he could take more frequent breaks from him when he was being particularly trying. But John also knew that he loved Stiles more than life itself, he would die for that boy, and there was no way that he could look Stiles in the eye on a daily basis and even think that he'd be willing to leave him._

_Sometimes, late at night, John wondered if Claudia ever truly loved Stiles. Or if Stiles didn't even factor into it and that John himself was the main thing that drove his wife over the side of that cliff. Or maybe it had nothing to do with either of them and that Claudia was just really depressed, like his therapist often suggested. That was another thing John didn't like to think about, though, that his wife had been suffering so badly and he never noticed._

_None of that was appropriate reasoning for an 11-year-old, however._

_"I think," John started, licking his dry lips. "I think that Mom was sad, so sad that she thought that dying would be better than living with us. She loved you a lot, Stiles, never forget that. But sometimes, even love isn't enough to make some people happy."_

_"Are you gonna die too?" Stiles asked. "Mom dying made you very sad, and you're still sad. If I wasn't enough to make Mom happy, what about you? What about me? What if I forget how to be happy and that I love you and that dying would make you sad?" John felt a chill go through him and became convinced in that moment that his heart would never recover from any of this. He pulled Stiles even tighter to him and ignored the tears sliding down his cheeks in favour of trying to make things right for his son._

_"I'm not going to die, not on purpose," he said. "I will do everything in my power to make sure that I never have to leave you. And if you ever feel like you'd rather be dead, you come tell me immediately and I'll help you until you don't want to die anymore." Stiles dissolved into a sobbing mess after that, and John wasn't that much better._

_John didn't sleep a wink that night. He lay awake in bed with Stiles, who had already cried himself to sleep by that point, curled into his side. John couldn't help going over every part of the earlier conversation, and every interaction he'd ever had with Stiles since he'd found out the truth about his mother's death. He couldn't help feeling like he'd failed Stiles somehow, but he made a vow to do better, and to never let Stiles feel like he wasn't loved or wanted._

_John had only ever felt angry and sad about what Claudia had done, but that night he felt a hint of rage and hatred underneath all the sadness. And then he ended up hating himself a bit for that. A lose-lose situation all around._

***

Derek works from home about 95% of the time, and Stiles has never before been so grateful for that as he is today.

Soon after they manage to drag themselves out of bed, Derek sets himself up on the couch with his laptop and is good about Stiles basically taking over his lap. Stiles knows that it's difficult for Derek to work like this, but he can't make himself get up right now and is getting very emotional about Derek not making him (like he would if Stiles were just messing around).

All is quiet in the apartment for a little while, and Stiles mostly zones out in Derek's lap as Derek works on translating documents. He very briefly dozes off and then snaps awake when Derek's stomach growls directly in his ear, which prompts a surprised laugh. Derek responds with a chuckle and then Stiles is laughing harder and he suddenly can't stop. The laughing soon turns into tears and Stiles spends the next five minutes as a miserable lump in Derek's arms.

"I'm so sorry you have to deal with this when things were finally calming down," Stiles mumbles when the tears finally stop. Derek drops a kiss on the top of his head.

"You don't need to apologize for having feelings, or for letting me take care of you," Derek says. "I remember the clusterfuck of becoming an Alpha again. That wasn't fun for either of us."

"But you actually had the excuse of shit happening and even physical challenges!" Stiles exclaims. "I'm getting bent out of shape over something I'm not even sure is going on!"

"Your feelings are still valid," Derek says.

"I'm starting to regret getting you into tumblr," Stiles mumbles.

"Shush," Derek says. "Listen, I know your mother's death was traumatic for you. It's not surprising that you're still feeling strong emotions about it now. Even if you don't know exactly what's going on, if anything. Some things still trigger strong emotions in me about what happened to my family. Trauma sucks like that."

"I might need to go back to therapy," Stiles says. "Even if this does turn out to be nothing." Derek has been in therapy since not long after he and Stiles started dating. Stiles has been in and out since childhood. These days they tend to share a therapist whenever Stiles feels he needs to go since she's the only local therapist who is in the know about the supernatural. (As Stiles had discovered back in high school, when he'd tried a therapist connected to the police station: it's very difficult to talk about your trauma and the problems you're having when you have to constantly self-edit yourself.)

"Just make sure you do something before everything goes insane, like last time," Derek says. Stiles cringes. The whole big mess with the multi-pack war and Derek becoming an Alpha again hadn't been a fun time for anyone involved. Stiles hadn't taken a lot of things well. "I'm gonna make some breakfast, and you still need to eat something."

"I'm gonna call Lydia," Stiles says. "I need to figure out what's going on with my mother sooner rather than later. If I'm gonna have an emotional breakdown I'd like to get it out of the way before the new school year starts."

***

Stiles waffles during breakfast and then during his shower later (which he shares with Derek because a, water conservation is important, and b, sexy werewolf boyfriend who may not get the opportunity to enjoy sexytimes in the near future depending on how the current shitshow resolves itself).

It's early afternoon by the time Stiles makes the call. Lydia, who is using the summer break from her normal university courses to take some extra courses, because sometimes planning to conquer the world takes some extra planning, answers on the first ring.

"Make it quick, I'm in the middle of a difficult project," she greets. Stiles is very much used to Lydia's work method these days, and doesn't bother getting annoyed.

"This might turn out to be nothing," Stiles says, "but what do you know about people coming back from the dead?" There's a pause over the line.

"What's Peter done now?" Lydia asks. From where he's sitting in the living room, in perfect hearing distance, Derek lets out an amused snort.

"Nothing that I'm aware of," Stiles says. Peter is a member of Derek's pack, but tends to prefer being away and causing his own trouble elsewhere. "Last I heard he and Chris were in Europe."

"So if it's not about him, what's the interest in the undead? Beacon Hills hasn't developed a zombie problem since the spring, has it?"

"Not yet. I'm just asking because, uhm, I, uh... I saw my mom in the store yesterday and she's been dead since I was 10 years old." Stiles hears Lydia take a sharp inhale and then go silent. It seems like forever until she talks again.

"When you say you 'saw your mother'," she says. "You mean she appeared to you? Or she was just there?"

"I think she was shopping," Stiles says. "She looked just like any other woman shopping at Wal-Mart, except that she's supposed to be dead. Do you know of any kind of creature that could bring someone back from the dead like that? Or take the form of someone who's been dead so long?"

"Not that I can think of off the top of my head," Lydia says. "As a banshee I might be able to tell something if I saw her, if she turns out to be the undead. Do you know where she is now?"

"No, everything's still a bit up in the air right now," Stiles says. "I haven't started researching anything yet."

"Start looking into things. If you need me, I can be there in a day."

"Thanks, Lyds."

"Derek, make sure he takes care of himself." Lydia ends the call. Stiles turns to Derek, who looks back at him with his eyebrows raised.

"I'm going to channel all my anxiety into my research," Stiles tells him. "Tonight might be another rough one."

Derek nods. "I'll make the coffee."


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles sets up camp at the kitchen table while Derek goes out to replenish their coffee stash. He calls the sheriff on his way to the nearest coffee shop.

 

"How's Stiles?" John asks when he picks up the phone.

 

"Hanging in there," Derek says. "He's about to start a research binge. We don't know how it's going to go so I think we should prepare for the worst."

 

"What are we looking at here, Derek?" John asks. "Do you really think he saw his dead mother?"

 

"I think he really believes he did. He's just searching out proof now," Derek says.

 

"I've been looking over Claudia's file since I got back to the station yesterday," John says. "Nothing looks out of place, but I can't really think of what I'd be looking for to know for sure." Derek reaches the coffee shop, but doesn't go inside yet. He stands a few feet away from the front door.

 

"She's been declared officially dead, right?" He asks.

 

"Of course," John says. "After we found the Jeep and determined that she'd, y'know, jumped. Then we had a funeral, and then it was all over. She's legally dead on paper, which you can tell Stiles if he asks. What's he been saying?"

 

"He's trying to figure out if it's some kind of supernatural creature," Derek says. "Worst case scenario is that it isn't." John's silent on the other end of the line, all Derek can hear is his slightly ragged breathing.

 

"Worst case scenario is that she faked her own death," John finally says, voice flat.

 

"Yeah, that's what Stiles figured, too," Derek says.

 

"Jesus," John says. "This is... fucking mess. I'm going to do some more digging around here. Keep an eye on Stiles and keep me posted."

 

"I will," Derek says. John ends the call and Derek puts his phone away as he enters the coffee shop. He walks up to the counter to order two coffees and a bag of ground beans. He smells Isaac before he sees him, and then suddenly Isaac is there.

 

"I got a text from Lydia," he says. "Do you guys need me to do anything?"

 

"I don't know yet," Derek says. "Did she tell you what's going on?"

 

"Something about 'possible undead activity'," Isaac says, complete with air quotes. "But if there's really zombies wandering around town I'd always thought Stiles would be the first to tell everyone. Pretty sure he's been creating a zombie apocalypse survival plan since high school. I haven't heard anything from him." Derek turns slightly to look Isaac directly in the eye.

 

"I might have something you can do," Derek says. "But you have to be careful and do not tell Stiles about it unless I tell you to." Isaac, who had been standing mostly slouched over, immediately snaps to attention. Derek pulls out his phone and sends a text to John.

 

"So something is going on," Isaac says.

 

"Maybe," Derek says. His phone buzzes in his hand and then he starts texting again. "I'm going to send you a picture. I need you to go to Beacon Heights and see if you see this woman anywhere, start at the Wal-Mart. Ask around if you can do it without it being weird. See if the Ito pack knows anything. It's an old picture, so she's gonna look a bit different." He quickly forwards the picture John sent him over to Isaac. Once Isaac receives it, he stares hard at his phone screen.

 

"Who is this?" He asks, frowning.

 

"That's not important yet," Derek says. "Just go out and see if you can find her."

 

"She looks familiar," Isaac says.

 

"I know," Derek says. One of the teenagers behind the counter calls out Derek's name. He walks over to the pickup counter and collects his coffee and coffee grounds. Isaac is gone when he turns back around.

 

***

 

Derek enters the apartment to find Stiles exactly where he'd left him, hunched over in one of the kitchen chairs and staring at his laptop like it holds the secrets to the universe. Stiles wordlessly holds out a hand as Derek passes by him and Derek places one of the coffees in it.

 

"I sent Isaac to Beacon Heights to see if he could find anything," Derek says. "And I talked to your dad." Stiles doesn't react to the mention of Isaac, but he does turn away from the laptop at the mention of his father.

 

"What did you tell him?" He asks.

 

"I told him you were doing research," Derek says. "He said he's looking into things on his end. He came up with the same theory you did."

 

"Shit," Stiles says. "Call Parrish and tell him to keep an eye on him. I don't know what he'll do if he finds something he doesn't like."

 

"You think he'll find anything?" Derek asks. He shoots off a text to Parrish. He watches Stiles as he hunches back over the laptop and starts typing. Derek's phone buzzes in his hand and he looks down to find that Parrish has sent him a thumbs up emoji.

 

"I don't know," Stiles says. "I don't know that there's anything _to_ find."

 

"Do you want there to be?" Derek asks. Stiles doesn't answer.

 

***

 

Derek jerks awake from a sound sleep. He's curled awkwardly on the couch. The apartment is dark and silent around him, aside from the soft blue glow and typing sounds coming from the kitchen. Derek checks the time on his phone; it's after three in the morning. He rolls off the couch and stretches, letting out a soft groan when his back pops.

 

He shuffles into the kitchen to find Stiles still hunched over his laptop. There are a few empty coffee mugs on the table and an empty protein bar wrapper. Derek eyes the wrapper in confusion, Stiles doesn't even like protein bars.

 

Stiles doesn't make any indication that he notices Derek's presence in the room. The squawk he makes when Derek suddenly shuts the laptop is probably both offended and surprised.

 

"Derek!" Stiles exclaims. He tries to jump out of the chair but just ends up falling to the floor in a heap.

 

"C'mon to bed," Derek says.

 

"I still have stuff to look up, Derek!" Stiles exclaims, using his chair as a prop to help him get back to his feet. "You can't just do that!"

 

"I just did," Derek says. "Take a break, get some sleep, start again in the morning when other people will be awake and then you can share information." He grabs Stiles under the armpits and hauls him to his feet and starts marching him in the direction of the bedroom.

 

"Derek!" Stiles exclaims. "I was in the middle of something!"

 

"We've talked about this," Derek says. Because they have, multiple times. "The extended research binges make you burn out too quick and just makes the whole process longer. Do I need to get out the binder from the end of your first college semester?" Stiles stops resisting Derek at that, but Derek can still feel the anger rolling off him, along with an undercurrent of helplessness.

 

"The faster I can find the right information, the faster I can figure all of this out," Stiles says. Derek ignores him and pushes him into their bed before crawling in after him.

 

"The more rested you are, the easier it is for you to find things," Derek says. He wraps Stiles in his arms and pulls him in against his chest. Stiles immediately goes limp.

 

He doesn't fall asleep right away; Derek rubs his back until he hears his breathing and heartbeat even out.

 

***

 

Derek is awoken by Stiles trying to thrash his way out of his hold while screaming.

 

It's not the most pleasant way to wake up.

 

"Stiles! STILES!" Stiles continues fighting and yelling, but Derek's shouting must eventually wake him because he suddenly goes limp in Derek's arms. Stiles' breathing is harsh and there are tears running down his cheeks, but he doesn't open his eyes.

 

The acrid stench of fear is heavy in the room, and Derek has to smother the whine building in the back of his throat. He nuzzles his face in Stiles' hair and waits for his breathing to calm down.

 

"I pushed her," Stiles mumbles.

 

"What?" Derek asks.

 

"She was standing on the edge of the cliff and I pushed her off," Stiles says, voice breaking. "Then she climbed back up all bloody and started laughing at me. And she grabbed me and tried to pull me down with her."

 

"That sounds awful," Derek says. It's hard to know what to say after sharing a nightmare; both of them have always had this problem. Just telling each other 'it wasn't real' or 'it was just a nightmare' has never helped, because they always know it's _just_ a nightmare but that doesn't make the images any less distressing.

 

"I just want this all to go away," Stiles moans. Derek tightens his hold and doesn't say anything.

 

What can he say?

 

***

 

The next few days are tough. Stiles doesn’t leave the apartment even once, and he barely even leaves the kitchen table unless Derek drags him to the bathroom or to bed. He doesn't eat anything unless Derek places something directly in his hands, and they'd had to cut the coffee off halfway through the second day for health and safety reasons.

 

Nightmares happen any time Stiles is asleep for any significant length of time, and by Friday afternoon, four days after Stiles had first seen his mother in the Beacon Heights Wal-Mart, Stiles is looking pretty rough. Communications with Parrish and Melissa reveal that the sheriff is doing only marginally better.

 

It turns out that John hasn't found much in his searches, aside from that Claudia is still very much confirmed legally dead and her social security number hasn't been used anywhere since her suicide. On a lark, he'd even tried to put her picture through some face-recognition software, but that hadn't turned anything up either.

 

Stiles seems to be getting more frustrated and manic the more times goes by without any answers. Derek can barely stand to watch him, but all he can really do is just stand by and take care of him the best he can. This situation has spiralled out worryingly and Derek isn't looking forward to the fallout, which is sure to be devastating no matter what anyone finds.

 

Isaac has been checking in periodically with his search, but he hasn't been finding much either. He's been in contact with the Ito pack, who are lending some of their resources, but it's all still slow-going.

 

Lydia has also been in contact. She shares some research with Stiles, but seems to think that this doesn't have any supernatural elements to it. She also texts Derek to ask for updates on how everyone is holding up in general. Derek's updates aren't exactly optimistic, but he still tells Lydia to stay where she is whenever she offers to come back to town to help out.

 

Derek feels like everyone has been holding their breath for the past week, just waiting for something, anything. He's honestly not sure at this point which of Stiles' theories he wants to be true. Best case scenario is that Claudia Stilinski really is dead and that this is all some awful misunderstanding. The emotional fallout will still be difficult to work through, but probably not as devastating as what would happen should the other theories prove true.

 

Some of the newer pack members, who became pack after Derek became an Alpha for the second time and who don’t know Stiles all that well, can clearly sense their Alpha's emotional turmoil and are in and out of the apartment and trying to help in any way they can. The new Hale pack is pulling together in this crisis in ways that Derek's previous pack of teenage misfits never really managed, and he's never been prouder as an Alpha. Although he wishes that it hadn't taken a major emotional upheaval for him to notice.

 

***

 

Saturday morning starts with a nightmare, and then a barrage of texts from Isaac.

 

**"DREEK"**

**"DEREK"**

**"SHES HERE"**

**"I THINK I FOUND HER"**

**"SHE KINDA LOOKS ALOT LIKE STILES"**

**"!!!"**

**"WILL YOU TELL ME WHATS GOING ON NOW???!!!"**

**"BRETT THINKS YOUR BEING A CREEPY STALKER"**

**"THERE BETTER BE A GOOD REASON FOR THIS"**

**"I DONT WANT TO BE ARRESTED DEREK"**

**"IM TOO PRETTY FOR JAIL"**


	5. Chapter 5

Derek is being especially shifty this morning, and it sets Stiles' anxiety spiking.

 

This has the unfourtunate effect of triggering Derek's anxiety, which makes him even more shifty and nervous, which makes Stiles more anxious, and it's really just a vicious cycle of anxiety that swirls until Stiles finally just leaves the apartment to get some fresh air before he explodes.

 

Of course he doesn't even leave the building before going back because, after a whole week of stressing over his laptop and neglecting most of his personal hygiene, he looks like a walking human disaster and he's pretty sure he terrified one of the kids that lives on his floor.

 

Derek is pacing anxious circles around the coffee table when Stiles gets back, which doesn't bode well.

 

"Okay, out with it," Stiles says. "Tell me whatever you know before one of us finally snaps."

 

"Isaac found her," Derek blurts out. The world goes blurry for a moment, and then everything goes into sharp focus. Including Derek's worried face. "Stiles?"

 

"Where is she?" Stiles asks. His voice sounds flat to his own ears, not giving anything away about the emotions starting to build inside him.

 

"I didn't ask, I just told him to get over here as fast as he could," Derek says. "Remember I told you I sent him to Beacon Heights last week to see if he could find anything? I thought it was a long-shot, but I guess it panned out?"

 

"I don't know what to say to this," Stiles says.

 

"Just... go take a shower," Derek says. "He'll be here soon and then we'll find out what he knows."

 

"Did you talk to my dad yet?" Stiles asks.

 

"Not yet," Derek says. "Whatever we learn, you can tell him after. Go shower." Stiles walks into the bathroom in a daze, and almost forgets to get undressed before getting in the shower. It's not a particularly quick shower, he keeps spacing out and forgetting what he's doing, and when he exits the bathroom on his way to the bedroom for fresh clothes, he hears Isaac's voice coming from the living room area.

 

Sure enough, Isaac, and Brett from the Ito pack, are sitting on the living room couch when Stiles comes back out. Derek is sitting in the only other seat, the arm chair, so Stiles walks over and falls into his lap.

 

"Well you look like shit," Isaac says when Stiles turns to acknowledge him.

 

"Well, your scarf is stupid," Stiles grumbles. "It's summer in California, why do you even have a scarf on?"

 

"It makes me look approachable," Isaac says. "Which came in very handy while I was wandering around Beacon Heights asking people if they'd seen this woman whose name I don't even know. Luckily I wasn't arrested for being a creeper." The brief levity of the moment is utterly destroyed and all the werewovles in the room obviously feel the shift in the atmosphere because they all start fidgeting in place. Derek rearranges Stiles to sit more comfortably in his lap and wraps him in a hug.

 

"Okay, Isaac, what did you find?" Derek asks. Isaac looks between Derek and Stiles and doesn't comment on their position, even though it looks like he wants to. It's clear that joke time is over and it's time to get down to serious business.

 

"So, okay, the picture you sent me was kinda old, and not a lot of people recognized it when I showed it around," Isaac says. "And the ones who did recognize it didn't have a name for me. But a lot of _those_ people also gave me side-eye when they told me this so probably they just didn't want to tell me who she was."

 

"But you did find her, right?" Stiles asks.

 

"Yeah," Isaac says. "There's a McDonald's up there, one of the cashiers said that she's been going in every other day for the past month or so."

 

"We staked the place out for the week and then eventually saw her there yesterday afternoon," Brett adds.

 

"And you're sure it's her?" Derek asks.

 

"Pretty sure," Isaac says. "We took pictures anyway. I'll send them to you and you two can figure it out." Isaac pulls out his phone and starts tapping the screen. After a few minutes he nods and looks back up. "And there you go." Stiles can feel Derek's phone vibrate from inside Derek's pocket where it's pressed against Stiles' leg, Stiles can hear his own phone play out Isaac's ringtone from the kitchen.

 

"Thanks," Derek says, shifting Stiles around so he can get to his phone.

 

"You gonna tell us what we're dealing with here?" Isaac asks.

 

"Not yet," Derek says. "You two didn't sense anything off about this woman?"

 

"Nope," Isaac says.

 

"Nah," Brett agrees. "We even had a few other pack members with us when we saw her, none of them noticed anything either. And one of them is a witch."

 

"You turned a stake out into a group date?" Derek asks, eyebrows furrowed.

 

"To be fair, it did help us blend in better," Isaac says. "Also who's gonna say no to chicken nuggets?" Stiles gives him a quick smile, but it soon fades. Derek isn't showing him what's on the phone, and Stiles is starting to get antsy. Isaac and Brett need to leave, like, now. Derek must pick up on his feelings because he soon dismisses Isaac and Brett, telling Brett to thank Satomi for him on his way out.

 

Once he and Derek are alone again, Stiles grabs for Derek's phone. Derek's already unlocked it so it doesn't take Stiles long to get to the text message from Isaac with the pictures attached. He quickly scrolls through them, but doesn't really realize what he's seeing at first. Derek is watching the phone screen from over Stiles' shoulder.

 

"I think it's really her," Derek says when Stiles' pauses on a particularly clear shot of the woman's face. Derek frowns thoughtfully. "She definitely resembles the old pictures you have. She's older though." Stiles' throat burns and his chest aches. Tears sting the back of his eyes, but don't fall.

 

It really is her. It's his mother. Over a decade older but still so familiar. Stiles zooms in on her face in the picture and runs his eyes over every pixel. Her hairstyle is different and her face seems a bit fuller, those are the only significant changes he can pick out from a cellphone picture taken at a distance.

 

She looks healthy, normal.

 

Certainly not like someone who threw herself off a cliff.

 

Stiles isn't sure whether to laugh or cry, or both.

 

He goes back to the first picture in the text and starts going through them again. He gets to the last one and spots something that makes him go cold all over.

 

"Derek," he says, voice shaking. "That kid there." Derek takes the phone from Stiles' shaking hands and brings it closer to his face to study it. His eyes widen and his mouth pops open a bit, enough so that his front teeth are visible. He sees what Stiles sees, then.

 

There's a small child holding onto Stiles' mother's hand. He's turned so that all the photo shows is the left side of his face, clearly showing the pattern of moles and upturned nose that Dad always said made Stiles so resemble his mother.

 

***

 

_Stiles stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror, glaring at the small constellation of moles dotting the skin near the left side of his mouth._

 

_John, on his way downstairs for breakfast, spotted Stiles and poked his head into the bathroom._

 

_"What's up, kiddo?" He asked. "Something in the mirror offend you?" He chuckled, and Stiles turned his glare on him, which only made him grin._

 

_"No," Stiles growled. "How do I make these go away? Do I need plastic surgery?"_

 

_John stopped laughing. "Make what go away?"_

 

_"These!" Stiles exclaimed, gesturing to his face with his hand and nearly slapping himself. "These spots! They look gross and stupid and I want them gone!" John raised his eyebrows in surprise.  Stiles'd had those moles since he was a baby, and this was the first time John had ever heard him say anything about them, negative or otherwise._

 

_"Who said they were gross and stupid?" John asked. Though even as he said it, he thought he had an idea of who._

 

_"No one," Stiles muttered, avoiding John's eyes. "I did. I don't want them anymore."_

 

_"Stiles," John said on a sigh._

 

_"No! Just tell me how to get rid of them!" Stiles demanded._

 

_"Stiles," John said. "Unless one of those moles has suddenly turned cancerous, which I can tell they haven't, I'm not looking into plastic surgery for my 12-year-old son!"_

 

 _"But I don't_ like _them!" Stiles wailed._

 

_"Stiles, whatever Jackson Whittemore said," John said, because he knew the score by now, "is bullshit. Your face is fine, your moles are fine."_

 

_Stiles blinked at his father in surprise, not sure if he was more shocked by the casual swear word usage or that he was calling Jackson out on his behaviour._

 

 _"Stiles, listen," John said. He walked into the bathroom and sat on the closed toilet lid. Stiles didn't move away from the sink. "Do_ not _repeat this, but listen to me when I tell you that Jackson is a nasty little twit and you really don't need to listen to anything he says about you. Whatever he says about you is wrong. There's nothing wrong with your moles, especially not if he says there is." A cautious smile bloomed on Stiles' face and he sidled closer to John._

 

_"I really can't say that you called him a nasty twit? Even to Scott?" he asked._

 

_"How is that the takeaway here?" John asked. "No, you can't tell anyone I said that. You can tell anyone, and everyone, that there is nothing wrong with your moles. Remember, your mother had moles just like you, and I thought they were pretty on her. Actually, I like it when I see your moles because it reminds me that a piece of your mother still lives on in you." Stiles' eyes dimmed a bit at that. Getting on to three years after Claudia's death and a mention of her still never failed to bring down the mood in a room. John's therapist once said that eventually the acute sadness and sense of loss when mentioning Claudia would fade with time. John hoped that it would start happening soon, for Stiles' sake if nothing else._

 

_"You still like that I remind you of her, even though she didn’t want us?" Stiles asked._

 

_"Stiles…" John said. "Listen to me: your mother did want us."_

 

_"But she left!" Stiles shouted. "Permanently!"_

 

_"I know, believe me, I know," John said. Did he ever know. "But like I keep telling you, and like Dr Blanchard keeps telling you: she didn't leave us because she wanted to, she left because she felt like she had to. Sometimes people with depression feel like their loved one will be better off without them, I think that's what happened with Mom, that she thought that we would be happier if she was gone."_

 

_"I'm not happier with her gone," Stiles mumbled._

 

_"Neither am I," John said. "But, unfourtunately, it is what it is. We love her and we miss her, and we use little reminders of her to remember the good times and how much we loved her."_

 

_"Like my moles?" Stiles asked._

 

_John smiled. "Like your moles."_

 

_Stiles moved in for a hug and John grabbed him and held him tight. He knew that as Stiles got older this kind of affection would be happening less and less. He had to make the best of it now and hoped that whatever ended up replacing it had the same comforting effect, because John knew there were gonna be more moments like this in the future. Sadly._

 

_"Can I call Jackson a nasty twit though?" Stiles asked suddenly. John let out a surprised huff of laughter._

 

_"Y'know what? If he makes comments about your moles again, you can call him whatever you want."_

 

_***_

 

"Call Isaac," Stiles demands. "Call him right now." He pushes the phone at Derek's chest and leaps to his feet. He paces around the coffee table, much like Derek had earlier, and gnaws at his thumbnail.

 

What does this mean? What does any of this mean?

 

If the woman really is Claudia, then who is the kid? Is it hers? Is it completely unrelated?

 

Maybe this really is some supernatural fuckery and someone - or something - is disguising their appearance as Claudia and Stiles. Only they got the ages wrong; Claudia too old and Stiles too young.

 

But to what end?

 

What kind of plot would involve the need to have a miniature Stiles wandering around with his long-dead mother? In a place close enough to their old home where people would be sure to recognize them?

 

If that's even what's really happening.

 

Stiles' head hurts and he sinks down on the couch. He picks up one of the ratty old throw pillows - the thing that had sent Derek and Stiles to Wal-Mart on that fateful day in the first place - and presses it to his face.

 

Then he screams.


	6. Chapter 6

To Isaac's credit, he answers the call right away, even if he'd just seen Derek barely five minutes ago.

 

"Miss me already?" Isaac asks.

 

"Isaac," Derek says, and then jerks in surprise when Stiles suddenly lets loose a primal-sounding scream. Even if it's muffled in a pillow, it's still very loud to Derek's wolf hearing.

 

"Was that Stiles screaming?" Isaac asks. Stiles has the pillow pressed to his face so hard that it looks like he's trying to absorb it into his skin. His breathing is loud and ragged and he sounds like he's going to either start crying or hyperventilating. Derek drops next to him on the couch and grips the back of Stiles' neck with one hand. Stiles stops shoving the pillow into his face, but doesn't otherwise react.

 

"Derek?" Isaac asks over the phone.

 

"Shit, yes, I'm still here," Derek says.

 

"What happened?" Isaac asks.

 

"We were looking at the pictures you took," Derek says. "Did you notice the kid the woman was with?"

 

"I noticed there was a kid," Isaac says. "But none of us paid much attention to him. You said you were looking for a woman, not a kid. Was there supposed to be a kid?"

 

"No," Derek says. "Go back to the pictures and look closely at the kid. Tell me what you see."

 

"Alright, hold on," Isaac says. "Hey, Brett." There's some scuffling sounds coming over the phone and then Isaac and Brett and a female voice mumbling. Someone is tapping on a phone screen.

 

"Got it," the female voice says. "Is it this kid?"

 

"Yeah." Isaac's voice, but he's not talking to Derek. "The one holding her hand that looks… Holy shit, Derek, that kid looks a hell of a lot like Stiles. Oh! That’s how this woman looks familiar! She looks like Stiles! This… this is weird, Derek. What am I looking at?"

 

"God, I don't even know," Derek says. "The picture isn't the greatest quality."

 

"Well excuse me for not going on a super-secret stakeout with a massive professional camera," Isaac snarks. "Does Stiles have a secret family out there or something?" And isn't that the question. Everyone in the pack knows that Stiles' only family is his father. That’s why he's so protective of him, reliably and fiercely so. Obviously Melissa, Scott, and Derek are also included in Stiles' 'This Is My Family And I Will Protect Them With My Life Or So Help Me' circle, but John Stilinski is the only blood relative Stiles has, the only person alive who's known him and cared for him since birth, one of the only two actual Stilinski's left (locally, anyway).

 

"Did you say that you had a witch with you when you all went to the McDonald's?" Derek asks.

 

"Yeah," Isaac says. "From the Ito pack."

 

"Good, take her back with you and have her make sure that she can't actually sense any spells or magic or anything," Derek says. "See if you can get any better quality pictures of the kid. Maybe see if any of you can overhear any names. Give us something to work with here."

 

"Alright," Isaac says. "And you don't want her to notice us, right?"

 

"I don't want her to notice you spying on her, no," Derek says.

 

"Got it," Isaac says. "I expect you to come bail us out when we get arrested for stalking."

 

***

 

Derek and Stiles don't hear back from Isaac until a few days later.

 

Stiles spends a lot of that time going back and forth between whether or not he should show the pictures to his father now, or wait until they get something more concrete.

 

He brings his father lunch at the station one day, and when he comes back to the apartment he tells Derek that he hadn't been able to make himself say anything about it.

 

The nightmares don't stop, but they become less loud. Stiles doesn't talk about it, so Derek doesn't know what the change is. It looks like he's getting more sleep, but he doesn't act like it. He wakes up irritated now and is quick to snap. A few times Derek has to leave the apartment to get a break so that he doesn't get irritated himself and start arguments.

 

He knows that Stiles is going through something and that it's not really his fault that he feels this way. They unconsciously start implementing the steps they had taken when Derek had become an Alpha again and had troubles dealing with it, only in reverse. Now Stiles is the one who is quick to anger and Derek is the one trying to mitigate the damage.

 

When Derek does finally get a call from Isaac, he's both relieved and apprehensive.

 

He's sitting on a bench in the park, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible and ignoring the two women glaring suspiciously at him from another bench a few feet away, when his phone vibrates in his pocket. He's quick to answer it when he sees Isaac's name on the caller ID.

 

"What did you find?" he asks.

 

"We got one decent shot and also a name," Isaac says. "No one got arrested, and I don't think she noticed us, but the staff are onto us and told us not to come back or they will call the police."

 

"I think the zoom lens was a step too far." Derek doesn't recognize the female voice speaking in the background and assumes it's someone from the Ito pack.

 

"Send the pictures to my phone, don't send them to Stiles," Derek says. "Then tell me what I'm looking at."

 

"Alright," Isaac says. A few minutes later Derek receives a text message, he opens it without ending the call.

 

"So," Isaac starts, "that blurry one, the first one, that's one Brett took when he noticed them walking in. She had a man with her this time, and we heard him calling her Claudine a few times. The second picture is also blurry because Brett is a horrible photographer--"

 

"Hey!" Brett's voice exclaims in the background.

 

"He's terrible," Isaac continues. "The third picture is one that I took of them sitting down, that's the guy that was with her. And the last picture, and the only good one, was one Tonya took on her way to the bathroom. Decent shots of the woman and the kid's faces."

 

"Tonya?" Derek asks distractedly, swiping back and forth through the pictures and studying them intently.

 

"The witch, she's the one with the zoom lens that got us banned from the McDonald's," Isaac says. "She also says that she never sensed any magic or spells active in the area, and that the woman and the people with her didn't have any magical ability, unless they were hiding it _very_ well. Anyway, the guy's name is Perry, and the kid's name is Brady or Grady or something. Or maybe Bradley? There was a birthday party or something going on, so we couldn't really hear them clearly. So many screaming kids, Derek."

 

"Alright, that's great, Isaac. Thanks for this," Derek says. "This is a big help."

 

"Awesome," Isaac says. "Now will you _please_ tell me what's going on?"

 

"Not yet," Derek says. "I'll call a pack meeting when we know exactly what's going on and how we're going to act on it."

 

"Better get a move on with that," Isaac says. "Satomi is starting to get a bit suspicious about you now."

 

"I'll call her too," Derek says. He ends the call and swipes through the pictures again. He needs to show these to Stiles right away, and he's pretty sure that Stiles isn't going to like what he sees.

 

***

 

It sounds like Stiles is in the shower when Derek returns to the apartment. He sets the smoothies (Stiles is still banned from coffee until further notice) and donuts he bought on the way home down on the kitchen table before making his way over to the bathroom. He knocks on the closed door.

 

"Stiles?" he asks.

 

"What?" Stiles snaps from inside. Derek ignores the tone, he knows this isn't about him.

 

"Isaac has an update," he calls. "I have food outside when you're ready." Almost immediately the shower turns off and Derek hears scuffling noises inside the bathroom before Stiles bursts out the door, naked and wet.

 

"What does he have!" he demands.

 

"Clothes and food first," Derek says. "When's the last time you ate?"

 

"I ate earlier, food can wait," Stiles says. "Information now." Derek arches an eyebrow at him and doesn't say anything before turning and walking back to the kitchen. He hears Stiles let out a growl and stomp off in the direction of the bedroom. Stiles is back in the kitchen in less time than Derek expected, still dripping wet and wearing only a pair of Derek's pyjama pants. He marches over to where Derek is sitting and thrusts an open hand in his face. Derek puts a donut in it.

 

"That's not what I'm after," Stiles says.

 

"That's what you're getting," Derek says. Stiles sits on a chair opposite Derek and bites a huge chunk out of the donut. And then practically shoves the whole thing in his mouth because, as Derek had suspected, he really needed something to eat. Derek slides over a smoothie, strawberry-banana, and Stiles grabs that and shoves the straw in his mouth. Derek waits until he's half-way done with it before finally pulling out his phone.

 

"Gimme," Stiles says. Derek unlocks it and hands it over. Stiles starts tapping and swiping at the screen and Derek grabs a donut to munch on while he waits. Stiles brings the phone close to his face as he peers at the screen.

 

"So what do you think?" Derek asks, after some minutes of silence.

 

"This kid has blue eyes," Stiles says. Derek nods silently; he'd noticed that too. Stiles had shared a new theory the day after Isaac gave them the first pictures. That maybe something or someone had, for some as yet unknown reason, created copies of Claudia and Stiles and let them loose. But they'd made a mistake and gotten the ages wrong. Derek had to concede that the theory did have some merit, but without knowing the 'whys' or the 'who' it didn't really make much sense.

 

A better quality picture of this unknown child - Grady, Brady, Bradley, whoever - reveals a child who bears a strong resemblance to Stiles, but isn't the exact copy that that first low-quality picture had implied. A clearer picture of the kid makes clear that his blue eyes aren't the only difference between him and Stiles: he does have the moles and the turned up nose; but he also has thinner lips, a differently shaped face, and smaller eyes.

 

He and Stiles look like siblings, not doubles.

 

"So if I'm reading this right," Stiles says, and his face and voice are calm, but Derek can smell the anger and sadness hidden beneath the surface, "it looks like my mother faked her own death and went off to create a new life and a whole new family. Away from me and Dad."

 

"I hate to say it, but that's what it looks like," Derek says. "The Ito pack's witch said that she didn't sense and magic or spells on them, or that they had any magical abilities at all. They also got their names. The woman is going by Claudine." Stiles slides the phone over to Derek and then lets his head drop to the table with a dull 'thump'.

 

"Oh, fuuuuuuck," he moans. "How am I gonna explain this to my dad? This is gonna kill him."

 

"How are you feeling?" Derek asks.

 

"Honestly?" Stiles asks. "Mostly numb right now, but I have a feeling that'll change once it finally sinks in that my mother just up and fucking abandoned me in the worst way possible. Do you know I blamed myself for years for her death?"

 

Yes, Derek knows that. Strange as it seemed, it had been something he and Stiles had bonded over in their early days: how guilty they felt over the deaths of their family members. Intellectually, Derek knows that Stiles knows that neither of them are at fault for anything. But it's not something that someone can just turn off. Derek also knows that it doesn't take much for those feelings of guilt to return, no matter how long it's been or how much therapy they've had.

 

"Yeah," Derek says. "And I know that you know that it wasn't really your fault."

 

"It still fucking feels like it though," Stiles mumbles.

 

"Yeah," Derek says.

 

"I think I'm just gonna go to bed," Stiles says. He looks up at Derek; his brown eyes are dim and wet, and his mouth is turned down at the corners, there's a subtle tremble to his lower lip. "Come with me?"

 

"Of course," Derek says. He gets up from his chair and goes around the table to help Stiles to his feet. Stiles stands under his own power, but he looks like he'll collapse at any second. Derek leads him down the hall to the bedroom and watches him climb into bed. Derek lies down next to him and gathers him into his arms.

 

Even though it's the middle of the day, they lie in bed for hours.

 

***

 

The next morning dawns bright and sunny, and the bags under Stiles' eyes are dark and heavy.

 

Stiles sits at the kitchen table with his face in his hands and an untouched plate of scrambled eggs and bacon in front of him. Derek tries to get him to eat it, but Stiles is completely uninterested.

 

Stiles had decided, as soon as he'd woken up that morning (from a nightmare, as was becoming a depressingly familiar pattern), that he has to tell his father what's happening.

 

Stiles is dressed, Derek is dressed, Derek has eaten, Stiles won't eat. There's no reason for them to not leave now. But Derek knows that this won't be an easy conversation for Stiles to have, so he doesn't make him hurry. He brings his empty plate to the sink and rinses it off, puts it in the mini dishwasher that sits on the counter.

 

As if he'd been waiting for that as a signal, Stiles gets up from the table and catches Derek's gaze.

 

"Let's go," he says, and turns around to start towards the front door. Derek eyes the still full plate sitting on the kitchen table and decides to just leave it for now. There are more important things to get to today.

 

The drive to the police station is silent. Stiles is still and quiet in his seat, staring out the window. Derek wishes he were being loud and obnoxious, arguing over the radio station and making innuendo-laden comments about the Camaro's leather seats. Stiles doesn't say a word, just holds tight to Derek's hand until they reach the station and he has to let go so he can get out of the car.

 

They find John in his office, and he does a double-take when he sees Stiles.

 

"Jesus Christ!" he exclaims, half-rising from his seat. "What the hell happened to you?" Stiles closes the office door behind him and Derek and drops down on the nearby couch, Derek sits down next to him. John turns an incredulous look to Derek, who just shakes his head.

 

"Dad, we gotta tell you something," Stiles says. "And you're not gonna like it." John slowly lowers himself back in his chair with a frown. His scent develops a hint of anxiety and dread, and Derek figures that he may have an idea of what's coming. "I don't know how to say this…"

 

"Just tell me the basics," John says. He lowers his hands to the arms of his chairs and Derek can see his grip turning his knuckles white. Stiles opens and closes his mouth a few times without actually getting anything out. He takes a deep breath and holds it for a few seconds, looking like he's gathering his nerves.

 

His breath escapes in a surprised rush when someone suddenly knocks on the door. It opens just enough for Parrish to stick his head in. He's frowning.

 

"Sir," he tells John. "There's ah… a woman out here looking for you." Stiles' eyes slowly widen and he stares down at the floor. His hand shoots out and immediately finds Derek, he squeezes and Derek squeezes back.

 

"Who is it?" John asks. Parrish's gazes bounces back and forth between Stiles and Derek and the sheriff and he starts to look a bit nervous. Even if Parrish weren't supernatural, he'd still be able to pick up the tension in the room.

 

"It's, uh… she says she's your wife?" Parrish says. Derek hears John's heart skip a beat and then speed up; Stiles stops breathing. Derek looks towards the door as Parrish opens it wider. John's eyes widen in shock and his face goes pale. Stiles doesn't look away from the floor.

 

Claudia Stilinski is standing just behind Parrish, looking perfectly at ease and like she isn't destroying Stiles and John's entire world.


	7. Chapter 7

_"Hey, Scott, if your dad wasn't such a jackass, would you want him to come back?" Stiles asked._

_Scott looked up from his Math homework at Stiles, tilting his head like a confused puppy. Both boys were stretched out on Stiles' bedroom floor, speeding through the homework they'd had all weekend to do but left to that evening, which was Sunday._

_"What?" he asked. "My dad's not a jackass."_

_"Yes he is," Stiles said. "You know it, and I know it. Just answer the question."_

_"I, well," Scott said. "I dunno. I think my mom's a lot happier now that he's gone. She doesn't cry as much."_

_"So you think your dad leaving is a good thing," Stiles said._

_"Is this about your mom?" Scott asked. "Stiles, your mom died."_

_"Yeah," Stiles said. "On purpose. I just… does it hurt the same? Your dad left on purpose, but he just went to Virginia, he didn't remove himself from the plane of existence." Scott squinted at him suspiciously._

_"Were you talking to my mom about this?" he asked. "Because I swear that's what she says to my tía when they talk about him on the phone and think I can't hear them."_

_"Yes, Scott, your mother and I have a standing coffee date where we get together and gossip about our deadbeat family members," Stiles snarked._

_"Shut up," Scott said. "It doesn't really matter what kind of plane my dad is on. I've only seen him once since he left, and he never calls or emails me or anything, so he might as well be dead. What's this about, anyway? Are you worried about your mom coming back? Are zombies finally happening?"_

_"No, Scott, zombies are not happening," Stiles said. "I just… ever since she died I always just wished she'd come back, y'know? But it's been years now that I think if she did come back I'd just be mad at her for being gone so long."_

_"But what if she only came back after this long because she's been trying to all this time and just couldn't until now?" Scott asked._

_"I guess that would be different, but it would still be kinda weird," Stiles said._

_"I think it'd be cool to have a zombie mom," Scott said._

_"There's no zombies, Scott."_

 

***

 

Stiles can't look away from the floor, can't make himself breathe.

 

All he can do is hold tight to Derek's hand and try not to fly apart.

 

Whatever is happening right now, he's not ready for it.

 

"Um, should I let her in?" Parrish's voice sounds like it's coming from far away, although he's standing basically next to where Stiles is sitting on the couch.

 

"Stiles?" Derek's voice sounds closer, but it has an echo-y quality to it that unsettles Stiles.

 

His lungs are starting to burn.

 

He's suddenly on his feet and he inhales a lungful of air in surprise. Then Derek is half-leading, half-carrying him out of Dad's office and down a quiet hallway. Then there's bright light and air on his face and Stiles realizes that they're outside, behind the police station.

 

"Derek," he croaks out. Derek doesn't stop them moving, leads Stiles over to a wooden picnic table near the very back of the back parking lot, close to the hedge separating the police station parking lot from the property next door. Derek sits Stiles down on the picnic table bench and then kneels on the pavement in front of him.

 

"Stiles," he says, his voice tight. "You have to breathe, it's okay."

 

"It's not okay," Stiles says, right before everything turns to static.

 

***

 

Stiles doesn't pass out, but he's out of it enough to actually have to 'come to' a bit later.

 

He doesn't know how much time has passed, only that he's now sitting in Derek's lap on the bench, and they're rocking back and forth.

 

Parrish is there too, and Dad.

 

It's all a bit surreal and Stiles wants to close his eyes and make everything else go away so that all he has is Derek holding him and rocking him. But he knows by now that that's not how life works, so he does the best he can to make himself functional enough to hear the news bombshell that's obviously coming.

 

"Where is she?" he asks, forcing the words out through an aching throat. Hopefully he hasn't been screaming out here. There aren't any gawkers hanging around, so maybe not.

 

"She, uh, she left," Dad says, sounding a bit bewildered. He's sitting on the bench of another picnic table. His face is pale and Stiles can see his hands trembling where they're resting on his thighs. "She… she just came in, talked for about five minutes, and then just walked out."

 

"But she was actually here?" Stiles asks.

 

"She was actually here," Dad confirms.

 

"And it was actually her?"

 

"It was actually her."

 

Stiles nods and hides his face against Derek's shoulder.

 

Derek will take care of him, he doesn't need to think right now.

 

***

 

_Everyone was gone and the cemetery was quiet. Stiles and John stood alone in front of Claudia's gravestone. Melissa McCall was standing a few rows away, giving them privacy while she waited around to give them a ride back home._

_Stiles didn't want to go home. He didn't want to go back to that quiet house now that he knew his mother would never be there to make it lively again. She had only really been gone for a little more than a week, but already everything had changed so much._

_"Dad?" Stiles asked._

_"Hm?" John said. Stiles looked down into the hole at his feet, at his mother's coffin. John had told him that some people would be coming by later to fill in the hole, but that they'd have to wait until everyone was gone for sure because they'd need a backhoe to move the dirt._

_Stiles knew that it was Mr Lahey who was responsible for filling in the graves. He wasn't sure he was really alright with having his mother covered in dirt by someone who was basically a stranger to them. To him, at least._

_"Couldn't we have cremated her and kept her ashes in the living room at home?" Stiles asked. "Like Scott and his abuela? I don't like that she has to be out here all by herself."_

_John tried not to choke on his own grief. He didn't want to break down in front of his son (there would be time enough later to do it alone with only the company of a bottle of whiskey and his regrets), and he couldn't really reassure Stiles that his mother wasn't really there anyway so he shouldn't worry (not that the open ocean was any better, though, he supposed)._

_There was no body in the coffin, and that was supposed to be a secret._

_But he had to say something._

_"Think of it this way, Stiles," John said, pulling Stiles in close. "Mom… isn't really here, in the ground. Her spirit, what really made her who she was, is free and watching over us from wherever she is. So we aren't really leaving her here alone. She'll always be with us in our hearts." Stiles sniffled and wiped at his eyes with the too-long sleeve of his new suit jacket._

_"That's kinda cheesy, Dad," he said. "But thanks."_

 

***

 

Stiles is in the bedroom, where it's quiet.

 

It's early evening now, and the fact that he can't really remember most of the afternoon should worry him. Also maybe the fact that it doesn't worry him should worry him. Though, floating along in a cloud of numbness isn't so bad. He's not crying anymore, at least.

 

The bedroom door is cracked open, letting in the murmur of voices of the pack gathering in the living room. Derek had called a pack meeting at some point, to explain everything to everyone all at once. Stiles will go out to join them as soon as he can make himself get up.

 

His phone, lying on the nightstand, starts blaring Scott's ringtone. Stiles waits until the last minute before reaching over to answer it. He taps the 'accept call' button and rests the phone on the bed next to him on speaker.

 

"H'lo," he says.

 

"Stiles?" Scott asks. "I just heard about what happened. How's it going?"

 

"About what you'd expect, I guess," Stiles says.

 

"I don't expect anything good," Scott says.

 

"You would be right," Stiles says.

 

"Yeah. So, she's really back then?"

 

"Yup."

 

"Shit."

 

"Yup."

 

"Everyone's there with you, though?"

 

"I'm being taken care of, don't worry." Stiles smiles softly, even though Scott can't see it. This is the part about Scott he loves the best, and why he worked so hard to repair their relationship after the massive clusterfuck of last year. When Scott doesn't have his head up his ass for the sake of self-righteousness, he genuinely cares for people and wants what's best for them (even the villains, which will probably always remain his and Stiles' one major disagreement).

 

"So... have you talked to her yet?" Scott asks.

 

"No, I don't know yet if I will," Stiles says.

 

"Well, she _is_ your mother," Scott says.

 

"I really think she forfeited that right when she made me think she'd jumped off a cliff and died for ten years."

 

"Fair enough."

 

"Like, how would you feel if your dad suddenly rocked up ten years after letting you think he was dead?"

 

"I dunno. I probably wouldn't be surprised. He never keeps his promises to come see me, or any other promise actually, so if he made me believe he was dead and didn't follow through it would be just business as usual. Mom's reaction might be a little more shouty, though." That surprises a chuckle out of Stiles. "Did you know that he told me, back during the whole Nogitsune thing, that he was gonna come back and have a long talk with me about my life and my future and what was happening in Beacon Hills at the time?"

 

"I thought you didn't hear from your dad at all once he left?"

 

"Exactly."

 

"Dude, I don't know whether I should laugh or cry over that."

 

"My mom just rolled her eyes. Like, dude, I don't know your mom's reasoning for what she did. And what she's doing. But I do know that the whole thing is just a major dick move. I'm all for second chances, but like, I don't know what to do about this. Did she move back to town?"

 

"Beacon Heights, as far as I know."

 

"Dude."

 

"Yup."

 

There's a moment of silence on the other line, and then the bedroom door slowly swings open to reveal Derek.

 

"Everyone's here," he says. "Are you sure you're up for this now?"

 

"I will never be up for this, might as well get it over with," Stiles says.

 

"Whatever's happening right now, good luck," Scott says from the phone. "Call if you need anything. I mean it."

 

"I will," Stiles says. He ends the call and put his phone back on the nightstand. He rolls off the bed and shuffles over to the door. Derek takes his hand and leads him to the living room, where the pack, and hopefully some answers, are waiting.

 

***

 

_"Is heaven real?" Stiles asked, rolling a crayon back and forth on his desk. "Like, do people really go there when they're dead?"_

_"My mom says that that's where spirits go when people die when they've been good," Scott said, trying to shove a crayon into a pencil sharpener with little success. "She says that that's where my abuela went when she died so that she could watch over me and my cousins and make sure we eat all our vegetables." He frowned. Surely his abuela would have better things to do than make sure he ate his vegetables and took his vitamins, but Mom was Mom and she definitely knew more about this than Scott did. Although Scott did agree with his older cousin that Abuelita would probably be more likely to be up there playing bingo and making huge dinners and bickering with Abuelito._

_"Scott, your abuela lives in a can on a shelf in your house," Stiles said. "You showed me that yourself."_

_"That's just her body," Scott said. "My tío Léon says that only the spirits go up to heaven because taking their bodies would cost extra shipping and no one can afford that. But I think maybe he was joking."_

_"I don't think heaven has a mail man," Stiles said._

_"Anyway, he says too that our family that dies, like my abuela, live in heaven and then they watch over us because they still love us ever when they're dead," Scott said._

_"Do you think my mom is in heaven?" Stiles asked. "I don't think we ever went to church like your family does."_

_"I think everyone goes to heaven," Scott said. "Who would watch over you and keep you safe if they didn't?"_


	8. Chapter 8

Stiles is silent as Derek leads him into the living room and installs him in a nest of blankets on the couch. John is sitting in the next space, and he puts an arm around Stiles' shoulders once he's seated. Stiles curls into his father's side and doesn't look at anyone else in the room. Melissa perches on the couch arm next to Stiles, and Derek can stand at the head of the room, in front of the whole pack, knowing that Stiles is comfortable and safe.

 

Derek's phone buzzes with a text as he looks over the people gathered in his living room. Aside from Stiles, John, and Melissa on the couch, there's also Isaac sitting on the floor near Stiles' feet. Brett and Tonya from the Ito pack are sitting next to him, invited along because they did technically get dragged into Hale pack business and they'll need to report back to Satomi to reassure her that there's no danger on the horizon. There are two laptops set up on the coffee table facing where Derek is standing; one shows Lydia in her apartment in New York, and Cora from where she's visiting her rescue pack in South America. Parrish is sitting on the couch next to John, and sitting next to him is one of the new pack members Derek acquired in the last year, a bitten wolf named Helena from one of the packs that had ended up dissolving during the whole mess that Scott had kicked off. Along with her, there are four other wolves and one human mate that Derek ended up with from dissolved or restructured packs: Kendra, Evan, Michel, Firas, and Firas' mate Eoin.

 

The new pack members don't know Stiles all that well yet, but Derek appreciates their support, and the worry he can feel coming from them. It's good to know that these people he isn't as close to yet can be trusted to take care of their packmates. It also makes a nice change to have their first crisis together as a pack be a situation where there isn't any expected violence or death.

 

Derek quickly checks his phone and finds that he got a text from Scott.

 

**From: McCall**

**make sure u look after him**

 

Derek doesn't answer the text, just puts his phone back in his pocket. The McCall pack are currently in Canada for the summer, basically interning with a more established pack so that Scott can learn the ropes of being a competent alpha and help make his pack a more cohesive unit. That had been one of the conditions put on him to keep him out of major trouble after the mess he'd caused last year. Derek knows that if it weren't for that, Scott would be in this apartment right now to provide support.

 

The phone call he'd heard earlier is really all Scott can do for now, and Derek is happy that Stiles still has Scott in his corner. Even if Derek doesn't like him.

 

Derek clears his throat and everyone seated in the room looks at him. Lydia and Cora on the laptop screens are looking down at Derek's image on their own screens.

 

"We still don't know everything that's happening right now, or what the whole endgame is supposed to be here, so I'll just start at the beginning and explain what we know so far," Derek says. "First of all, I want to make it clear that it doesn't look like we're in any danger from this. This isn't a threat to the safety of Beacon Hills or the pack itself. This threat hits more on a personal level." He takes a deep breath and locks eyes with Stiles. Stiles' eyes are shiny and red-rimmed, and he looks pitiful where he's curled up almost in the crook of John's arm. But there's strength in the set of his jaw and the nod he gives Derek. Derek nods back.

 

"A little over ten years ago, Stiles' mother died," he says. "Most of you know this already. The story is that she died suddenly of an illness; that story isn't true. Some of you maybe don't know that she actually committed suicide by jumping off a cliff. That's what Stiles and John have believed all this time. A few weeks ago, Stiles spotted someone who looked like his mother in a Wal-Mart in Beacon Heights. We weren't sure what was going on, if it was really her or some kind of shape shifter or magic spell, or what, so we took some steps to find out. Stiles and Lydia did some research, John used his resources as a sheriff, and I sent Isaac up to Beacon Heights to see if he could find anything."

 

"Without even telling me what I was supposed to be looking for this woman for," Isaac jumps in. "Are you telling me that the woman I was tailing that whole time was Stiles' dead mother?"

 

"Well, we still weren't sure, that's why we sent you," Derek says. "Anyway, Isaac, along with some members of the Ito pack who were good enough to help, did find her and established that she's a real person and that nothing magical or supernatural seems to be happening."

 

"So just to confirm," Lydia says, "this is an actual human woman we're dealing with."

 

"Yes," Derek says. "We've also confirmed that this woman is, in fact, Claudia Stilinski." There's an audible gasp from most of the assembled group. "She showed up at the station earlier today to speak with John."

 

"What?!" Cora exclaims, her voice staticky over the laptop speakers. "What the actual fuck?!"

 

"I wasn't there for that conversation," Derek says. "I don't know if John wants to pick this up?" Everyone turns to look at John. Isaac and Brett turn the laptops around to face the couch.

 

"Well," John says. "There's not much to tell yet. She came in and told me that she hadn't actually committed suicide, she'd faked the whole thing, and that now she wants to reclaim her old identity."

 

"Seriously?" Melissa asks in a tone that sounds like it spells trouble. Isaac shoots her a quick glance and scoots a few inches away from where she's sitting.

 

"Seriously," John says.

 

"If she's been alive this whole time, how come no one's ever seen her before?" Brett asks.

 

"She didn't say anything about that, but my guess is that she hasn't been living in the area until recently," John says. "She didn't have all that much to say today, she just wanted to let me know that she was back because Stiles had seen her. And that one of the cashiers at McDonalds let her know that there was a group of young people spying on her, and she thought it was related. She wanted me to hear directly from her what was happening."

 

"Oh, well, that was nice of her," Melissa spits, voice heavy with sarcasm.

 

"Anyway, that's where we are right now," Derek says. "Brett and Tonya, you can let Satomi know that nothing is going on that will affect her pack. And pass along my apologies for almost getting her involved." Brett and Tonya nod and then get up to leave, their role here is done.

 

"So," Firas asks, from his position leaning against the wall behind the couch. "What happens now? Do we still need to keep an eye on this woman? Or are we sure she really isn't dangerous?"

 

"As far as I can tell, Claudia Stilinski isn't a threat to us," Derek says. "But we don't have all the information, so I'll just say to keep on your guard until we get this all sorted out. Let me or John know if you see her in the area, and don't approach her. But I really don't think she's actually a danger." Firas' dark eyes watch Derek carefully. Out of all the new pack members, he and Eoin are the most generally anxious and suspicious. It's understandable, given the circumstances of how they came to be in the Hale pack in the first place, so Derek never takes their worrying personally.

 

"I have a question," Helena asks, turning to look across Parrish at John. "How can someone who's been dead for over ten years reclaim their old identity? Isn't she legally dead?"

 

"It's a hell of a process," John says. "But it's possible. It does mean that she'll probably come back to the station a few times, just in case anyone does see her in the area."

 

"How did Peter legally come back from the dead?" Cora asks.

 

"I'm not entirely sure he actually did," John says. "With everything going on at the time I think we kinda dropped the ball on that one."

 

"He doesn't really spend a lot of time in this country anyway," Parrish pipes up. "He's officially some other government's problem now."

 

"They can have him," Lydia says. "Anyway, I have to sign off now, I still have some work to do. Keep me updated on everything. Stiles, take care of yourself." She ends her call and the laptop screen goes back to showing her Skype contact card. Stiles has been silent the whole meeting, and he doesn't say anything to Lydia signing off. He almost looks like he's asleep, curled up in blankets and hiding his face against his father's shoulder. But Derek knows he's awake.

 

Cora signs off soon after and Isaac shuts both laptops. With one last reminder to keep an eye out, Derek ends the meeting and dismisses everyone. Soon everyone is gone but Isaac, John, Melissa, and Parrish.

 

"So, now what?" Parrish asks. Derek walks over and sits down on the coffee table in front of Stiles' place on the couch, Isaac having moved to the now-empty spot beside Parrish.

 

"We deal with things as they come," John says, sounding tired. "That's really all we can do."

 

"What do you think she wants?" Melissa asks, she has an arm stretched out across the back of the couch and is running her fingers through Stiles' hair.

 

"Who even knows," John says. "I'd probably better get going, I've got work tomorrow." Stiles briefly tightens his grip on John's shirt, but then lets go and sits up. His eyes are dry and his face is red. He doesn't look up from his lap as John gets to his feet and stretches. He bends down to give Stiles a hug and then follows Melissa out of the apartment when she leaves. Stiles turns to Parrish once the door shuts behind his father.

 

"Melissa is staying with him at the house, just in case," he says. "You stick with him at work."

 

"I will," Parrish says. 

 

It's not long before he and Isaac leave as well.

 

Once everyone is gone, Derek orders take-out and he and Stiles settle in for a quiet evening. Taking advantage of what is most likely the calm before the storm.

 

***

 

No one in the pack sees or hears from Claudia the next day, or the one after that.

 

Derek can tell that it's putting Stiles on edge, and he's not looking forward to that inevitable explosion.

 

It's late summer and Stiles' university classes will be starting up again soon, but so far Derek hasn't heard Stiles mention them once. Stiles enjoys school, and the end of summer for the past few years – except for last year - has often meant Stiles getting excited about upcoming lectures and assignments and dragging Derek along for back-to-school shopping for supplies he doesn't actually need.

 

This year Stiles doesn't really leave the apartment, especially not to go shopping. He hasn’t been to Wal-Mart, or Beacon Heights in general, since the day he first saw Claudia.

 

Derek is the one who suggests that Stiles just go out to take a drive. To the park, to the station, anywhere he can get a change of scenery. It takes another day or two (still without any Claudia sightings) for Stiles to actually make himself leave.

 

Derek has been alone in the apartment for about five minutes when he hears shouting and loud thumping noises coming from outside. He goes over to the nearest window – in the living room – and looks out. This window faces the building's parking lot, and he can't really see anything, but he can hear everything and it sounds like Stiles.

 

He rushes out of the apartment and down the stairs. There's a crowd outside when he reaches the parking lot, and he has to push through them to get to Stiles. Once he finally makes it to the front of the crowd, he's shocked into stillness.

 

Stiles is wailing away at his Jeep with his trusty baseball bat and screaming incoherently. One of the taillights is already busted and there's an impressive dent developing in the passenger-side door. One of the windows cracks ominously and Derek springs into motion.

 

He ducks under a wild swing and grabs Stiles around the waist. He pulls Stiles in close to his chest and then wrestles the bat out of his grip and tosses it away. Stiles is still screaming and flailing his arms in Derek's direction, like he's trying to get away from him.

 

"STILES! Stiles! It's me! Calm down!" Derek shouts. Stiles screams turn to angry sobs just as a police car pulls up. The officers call for the crowd to disperse, which they don't, of course (Derek's pretty sure he spots someone filming the whole scene with their cellphone). Luckily, one of the officers is Parrish, who is quick to take stock of the scene.

 

"Well," he says, standing next to Derek and looking over the damaged Jeep. Stiles is now still in Derek's arms, held tight against his chest, breathing hard but not otherwise doing anything.

 

"Yeah," Derek says. He observes the Jeep. It's the same Jeep Stiles has been driving since Derek first met him. It's in a bit better shape these days; Derek got it completely overhauled and repaired for Stiles as a Christmas gift one year. It's always been one of Stiles' most prized possessions and he drives it everywhere. It's the place where Stiles first confessed his feelings for Derek, which then led into Derek and Stiles' first kiss, and then their first (but certainly not last) make-out in the backseat. It's the Jeep Stiles drove into countless situations to save the day, baseball bat under the driver's seat and mountain ash in the glove compartment.

 

It's also the same Jeep Claudia used to drive; and she drove it to, and left it at, the cliff where she'd pretended to take her own life.

 

"I really don't think we need to make a report for this," Parrish says.

 

"He beat up his own car," Derek says. "Why put in the paperwork for that. Though if you have a minute, there's some jackass in the crowd who I'm pretty sure filmed this whole thing."

 

"Point him out and I'll handle it," Parrish says. Derek looks back over his shoulder and nods his head.

 

"That guy there. Blond hair, striped shirt." Parrish nods and is off. Derek starts guiding Stiles away from the parking lot, back to the safety of their home.

 

"It's not fair," Stiles chokes out.

 

"I know," Derek says.

 

***

 

Stiles schedules an appointment with his therapist the very next day. Then he calls his university and cites a family emergency to get permission to take his classes remotely.


	9. Chapter 9

_"Stiles, I'm letting you drive the Jeep from now on with the understanding that you take responsibility for everything and treat it right," John said. He had the Jeep's keys held tightly in one hand, and Stiles' gaze was locked on it._

_"Whatever you say, Dad," Stiles said. "I'll treat it like my own child. Feed it and water it and everything."_

_"I'm greatly concerned as to where your mind is," John said, "but as long as the thing stays in one piece and driving, and my deputies don't have to keep pulling you over, then she's all yours." He handed Stiles the keys and Stiles, his brand-new full driver's licence burning a hole in his wallet, dove for the Jeep's driver's side door and yanked it open._

_"This is so great!" He exclaimed. "I'm gonna go show Scott!" He adjusted the driver's seat and started the engine. The Jeep roared to life and Stiles gave an excited whoop. He waved to John as he backed out of the driveway, narrowly missing the mailbox._

_He turned on the radio and sang along tunelessly to whatever was playing._

_The whole way to Scott's house, he could almost picture his mother sitting in the passenger seat, smiling proudly at him and singing along the way she used to do when Stiles was very little and in the Jeep with her._

 

***

 

"So you beat the shit out of the Jeep, huh?" Dad asks. Even though this is a phone call, and his dad can't see him, Stiles still blushes and shoves his face into a throw pillow.

 

"I'm sorry," he says, voice muffled by the pillow.

 

"Stiles, I can't hear you," Dad says. Stiles pulls his face up.

 

"I said I'm sorry," he says. "I know how important the Jeep is to you. I just got so mad..." Dad's sigh crackles down the phone line. Over at the kitchen table, Derek is working on his laptop and keeping an eye on things. A part of Stiles feels embarrassed about needing to have Derek with him all the time or he'll snap, but another part is grateful that Derek is still there and wants to help him, even with his emotions going nuts.

 

"Stiles, the only reason the Jeep was important to me is because it was your mother's, and then it was yours," Dad says. "It was important to her and I knew she'd want you to drive it when you were old enough. I wanted you to have something of hers. I'm not sure what to feel about the thing anymore, to be honest."

 

"I wanted to destroy it," Stiles says. "For so long it was something that I could share with her, even if she wasn't here anymore. Now just thinking about driving it makes me see red."

 

"That's fair," Dad says.

 

"How are you holding up?" Stiles asks.

 

"Well, I haven't felt the need to beat anything with a bat," Dad says. Stiles huffs out a laugh. "I'm doing about as well as can be expected. Melissa and Parrish got rid of all the alcohol in the house. So thanks for that."

 

"Just doing my part," Stiles says. "Derek threw out all our booze too."

 

"Bless him," Dad says.

 

"Har, har," Stiles says. "So I have a therapy appointment next week."

 

"That's good," Dad says. "I'll probably end up going myself. IA's been making noises about having one come in, depending on how their investigation goes." The fact that internal affairs is investigating his father infuriates Stiles every time he thinks of it. His dad hasn't been under investigation since the kanima incident, and Stiles liked it that way. Now here's another bullshit situation that could leave a black mark on Dad's record.

 

The only consolation to this is that Stiles is pretty sure that no one is going to end up horribly murdered this time. Which is always a plus.

 

"So, uh, about that," Stiles says. "Can they even charge you with anything? Like, I don't think faking your death is illegal, or anything."

 

"It isn't," Dad says. "But making a false police report and fake death certificate is. But I'm pretty sure we can convince them that the police department was acting on good faith at the time. Your mother did all the lying and falsehoods herself." That's another thing that infuriates Stiles when he thinks about it: the depth of his mother's deception and how far she was willing to go to get a brand new life away from Beacon Hills and the Stilinski family.

 

"Has she… did she ever come back? To the station?" Stiles is reluctant to ask this question. Thinking about running into his mother again feels like pressing on a bruise. But now that this can of worms has been opened, Stiles has to see it through.

 

Some days he wonders what would've happened if he hadn't been so convinced that he'd seen her in Wal-Mart that day. But he eventually gives up on those thoughts because she would've ended up back in Beacon Hills at some point. Maybe not as soon as she did, but eventually. And Stiles likes the fact that he'd been able to give his father some warning of the upcoming storm of angst headed his way. Small mercies.

 

"Not that I know of," Dad says. "But she doesn't really need to. Not to reverse her legal death, anyway. That doesn't really have anything to do with me."

 

"Do you think she'll ever tell us why?" Stiles asks.

 

"I really have no idea, kid," Dad says. "I'm pretty sure we aren't gonna like whatever answer we get, so I'm fine putting it off as long as possible."

 

***

 

_Claudia spent a lot of time on the computer._

_Stiles hung onto the doorknob on the door to the home office, watching her as she typed. Claudia knew he was there. Stiles knew that Claudia knew he was there. There was a strange tension in the room that Stiles picked up on but couldn't read._

_"Are you mad at me?" Stiles asked suddenly._

_"No, Stiles, I'm not mad at you," Claudia said, not turning away from the computer screen._

_"Are you sure?" Stiles asked. "You sound mad."_

_"I'm not mad," Claudia said. "Don't you have anything else to do right now?"_

_"Not really," Stiles said. "Do you wanna play Lego with me?"_

_"Not today, Stiles," Claudia said. Stiles frowned. He couldn't remember the last time Claudia had wanted to play Lego with him, or anything else for that matter. John played with him a lot, even though he had to work long hours and was sometimes tired after he came home from work. He said he wanted to be the sheriff soon, so he had to work really hard so that people would know that he could do the job and vote him in._

_Claudia didn't have a job, she spent most of the day at home. Stiles wasn't really sure what she did all day. Clean, maybe. She wasn't like Scott's mom, who had a job where she worked long hours. But even then, Scott's mom always seemed to have time to play with Scott, and with Stiles when he went over to visit._

_Stiles let go of the doorknob and let himself fall to the floor. He crawled over to the computer desk and rose on his knees so that he could see a bit of the screen. He caught sight of a picture of a small red house before Claudia minimized the window._

_"Whose house is that?" Stiles asked._

_"Nobody's," Claudia said. "Why don't you go call Scott and see if his mother will let you go over for a while?"_

_"Really?" Stiles asked. "Awesome!" He clambered to his feet and rushed down the hall towards the living room, where they kept the table phone._

***

 

Derek makes an _amazing_ pillow.

 

Honestly, he's the best.

 

"Please don't suffocate yourself in my chest," Derek says. "I really don't want to have to explain that to your father." Stiles pauses in his nuzzling of Derek's pecs and looks up. He's lying on top of Derek, face to chest, and Derek is holding an e-reader up over his face so he can read it without having to rest it on Stiles' head. All Stiles can really see is the underside of Derek's jaw, which certainly isn't a bad sight.

 

"Derek," Stiles says. "Your chest muscles are glorious and deserve to be appreciated." He brings up both hands and cups Derek's pecs. Derek snorts in amusement and shakes his head. Stiles grins and drops a kiss in the center of Derek's chest before laying his head back down.

 

It's a calm and quiet afternoon. The sun is out, the birds are singing, the day before had been Stiles' first therapy appointment in a while and it had gone fairly well considering, Stiles had woken up feeling somewhat normal again. So far, today has been a very good day. Stiles had even woken up softly rutting up against Derek's hip, instead of screaming himself awake in terror.

 

 _Very_ good morning, he's sure Derek feels the same.

 

The day still hasn’t been ruined by the time the afternoon rolls around, so Stiles is cautiously optimistic that he'll get this one good day in the middle of all this emotional disaster. Sure, he's worried that it'll all fall apart by tomorrow, but for now he's content to just let the day play itself out. He and Derek haven't actually left the bed much all day. It has been totally relaxing.

 

Even a call to Dad at the station hadn't ruined the mood (helped, of course, by the fact that neither of them had brought up her or anything about her).

 

Yessir.

 

Today is a good day.

 

***

 

Everything goes to shit the morning after Stiles and Derek's very nice day, because of course it does.

 

Again, Stiles doesn't wake up screaming, but the erection he did wake up with wilted before he could do anything with it, much to his disappointment. Derek had said that it was alright, and Stiles had believed him (always did, when it came to these matters), but Stiles had still been put out about it.

 

The real ruination comes not long after breakfast.

 

Stiles is cramming half a slice of toast in his mouth when his phone rings. Derek, taking more reasonably sized bites of food, rolls his eyes and answers it. He puts it on speaker so Stiles can hear.

 

"Hi, John," Derek says.

 

"Derek," Dad says, and he sounds a bit off. Derek frowns and Stiles starts chewing like his life depends on it, also chugging half of his glass of milk to try to free his mouth faster.

 

"What happened?" He eventually manages to choke out.

 

"You, uh, you remember those pictures you showed me?" He asks. Stiles knows he means the last set of pictures Isaac, Brett, and Tonya took; the ones showing Claudia at the McDonald's with a man and a little boy with her. John's reaction to the pictures had been what prompted Melissa and Parrish to remove all the alcohol from his house, just in case.

 

"Yep," Stiles says, feeling a knot of dread forming in his stomach. "Did you, uh, find something out about them?"

 

"I, uh, yup, definitely did," Dad says. "The kid is hers, which was kinda obvious."

 

"That is true," Stiles says. He shares a worried look with Derek, who is staring hard at the phone with his arms crossed tightly over his chest. Stiles has had enough time to come to terms with the fact that he maybe now has a little half-brother. He tries not to put too much thought into it, though, since he still doesn't know what that really means for his life in the grand scheme of things. Better to just ignore it for now. "So I'm guessing the guy is her boyfriend, and the kid's father."

 

"Fiancé, actually," Dad says. Stiles sucks in a sharp breath. Derek's eyes widen, though he doesn't say anything. Stiles isn't sure why knowing that this guy is Claudia's fiancé instead of boyfriend makes a difference, she's still separated from his father either way, but it does.

 

"How did you find this out? Did she come see you?" Stiles asks.

 

"Her lawyer did," Dad says, sounding very defeated. "She's still working on getting herself declared legally alive again. But she, uh, decided to start divorce proceedings right away, just to get the ball rolling." The news hits Stiles like a punch to the gut, and for a moment he almost feels the toast from earlier trying to crawl its way back up his throat. His mouth drops open but he can't think of anything to say, his mind is a complete blank. Derek grabs one of Stiles' hands from across the table and squeezes. Stiles it too numb to really react.

 

"Can she do that?" Derek asks.

 

"Apparently she can," Dad says. He clears his throat. "Anyway, I'm going to be working from home for the rest of the day while I... process this. I just wanted to let you two know in case you had to call the station and couldn't reach me."

 

"Dad, are you okay?" Stiles asks, finally finding his voice again.

 

"I'll be fine," Dad says. "Don't worry about me."

 

"Dad," Stiles says.

 

"Seriously, Stiles, I'll be fine," Dad says. They all say their goodbyes and Derek ends the call. Stiles stares at the blank phone screen for a minute.

 

"I don't know what to say to that," he says. It's only when Derek walks over to him and pulls him to his feet and into a hug that he realizes he's shaking.

 

"I'll get someone to stay at the house with him," Derek says. "Let's go back to bed."

 

Derek grabs his phone and leads the way to the bedroom. He sits on the edge of the bed to make some calls while Stiles curls up against his back.

 

***

 

_"Daddy, can I have a brother or sister for Christmas?" Stiles asked._

_"A what now?" John asked. He looked away from his paperwork to where Stiles was playing on the floor beside his desk at the station. One of the other deputies sitting at a nearby desk glanced over with a smirk. John flipped him off when he was sure Stiles wasn't looking._

_"A brother or sister," Stiles said. "Heather got a new brother and she said that he's boring but he's cute and he'll be less boring when he's bigger."_

_"That's, um, not really up to me, really," John said. "It's a bit more complicated than just going to the store to get one, Stiles."_

_"Where do you get one?" Stiles asked. "And how much is one? I have some money saved in my piggybank!" The deputy at the other desk let out a loud chuckle, which he tried to turn into a cough when Stiles turned to look at him. John glared at the other man behind Stiles' back._

_"Never mind where you get one," John said, and turned back to Stiles. "Just know that it's not easy and it costs a lot of money."_

_"Does a lot of money mean more than three dollars?" Stiles asked. "'Cause that's all what I have. But I bet I can borrow another one from Scott if you need it." John tried to smother a smile. This is the kind of thing he meant when he tried to convince Claudia that their son actually was kind and well-meaning. He was a real sweetheart when he was calm and not bouncing around excitedly 'like a demented rabbit', as Claudia often put it._

_"It's a lot more than three or four dollars, kiddo," John said. "But you don't need a brother or sister right away. You have Scott, he's fun to play with."_

_"Yeah," Stiles said. "But he doesn't live with us. If I had a brother then he could live with us and we could play Lego and cars all the time!"_

_"Well, even if we did you a brother or sister, it wouldn't be in time for Christmas, and they wouldn't really be able to play Lego or cars with you for a while," John said. "And when they get big enough, you might not want to play with cars and Lego anymore." Stiles gasped and gathered up all the toy cars he'd been playing with, hugging them close to his chest. John had never seen a six-year-old look more offended._

_"I would too want to play cars and Lego with them!" Stiles announced._

_"Inside voice, Stiles," John said. "Anyway, I'm just saying. You probably won't get a brother or sister by Christmas. But Scott's a lot like a brother, isn't he? There's no reason why you can't just play cars and Lego with him."_

_"He still doesn't live with us," Stiles said with a pout._

_"He's free to visit," John said. The deputy at the other desk let out one last chuckle and John shot him another glare before they both returned to their paperwork. Stiles, having realized that he lost the argument, went back to his cars and tried to play as quietly as he could._

_John kept half an eye on him. The truth was that John would've loved to give Stiles a sibling. He'd broached the subject with Claudia a few times when Stiles was a bit younger, but Claudia wasn't having it. John let it go. Back when he and Claudia first got married, John had told her that he'd always wanted a few kids as soon as possible. Claudia hadn't been as enthusiastic, but she'd told him that she wanted kids someday._

_That 'someday' had finally come five years later in the form of an accidental pregnancy, which eventually became Stiles. If ever there was a difficult time in the marriage that John could point to, it was then, when Claudia first found out she was pregnant and came right out and asked John if he would leave her if she aborted. He'd told her he wouldn't, and he'd likeed to think that he truly wouldn't have left her over it. Maybe some of that indecision had shown through because Stiles ended up being born a few months later. After that, Claudia got her tubes tied as soon as she was physically able._

_John looked down at Stiles, who was now looking through the desk drawer where John kept extra toys. John himself had been an only child, and he hadn't really wanted that for his own son. But he really did love Claudia, and he didn't want to lose her over this._

_He never regretted Stiles, ever, never could. But he sometimes couldn't help but wonder if Claudia ever did._

 

***

 

The summer ends, college and university courses are set to start in the next few weeks, Scott comes back from Canada, John takes a week off work and spends most of it hanging around the apartment, Stiles and Derek have a few more therapy appointments, Scott spends a few days in town with Melissa and Stiles before heading back off to school.

 

No one hears from Claudia.

 

Until the week Stiles' classes are set to start.

 

Stiles and Derek's apartment only has two bedrooms, and one of those bedrooms has already been converted into an office for Derek's full-time translation work, and Stiles doesn't want to intrude there. He needs his own workspace to do his university courses online, so he decides to take over the kitchen table.

 

He and Derek will be fine eating on the living room coffee table, the TV's in there anyway.

 

He's tooling around on Google and daydreaming about the house he and Derek will own someday, with enough rooms for bedrooms and offices and maybe a nursery if they're very lucky, when Dad calls him.

 

"Hey, Dad," Stiles says when he picks up.

 

"Stiles," Dad says. "I have some news."

 

"That doesn't sound promising," Stiles says.

 

"It's about your mother," Dad says. "She wants to talk with you."

 

Stiles' insides turn to ice.

 

Then fire.


	10. Chapter 10

Derek and Isaac sit on opposite ends of the living room couch and watch Stiles pace back in forth in front of them. He'd already been at it when they both got home from training with some of the other pack members. That had been an hour ago. They still don't know what's going on.

 

There's a dent in the wall where Stiles must have kicked the coffee table out of his way. The coffee table is missing; Derek's not sure now is the right time to ask about it.

 

"Did you talk with the sheriff?" Isaac asks under his breath.

 

"Not today," Derek answers, equally quietly.

 

"Maybe you should," Isaac says. "We both know what this is about. Maybe find out what's going on before Stiles takes a bat to something else?" They both share a look. The Jeep is still parked in its designated parking spot, still busted up, but now covered by a tarp and out of sight. Stiles hasn't mentioned anything about it since the day he attacked it.

 

Stiles crosses by the couch two more times before Derek finally gets up to stop him.

 

"Stiles," he says. He stands in Stiles' path and Stiles stops directly in front of him so that they're nearly nose-to-nose. He's twitching and red-faced and breathing quick and hard.

 

"Do you know what she wants now?!" He exclaims.

 

"No," Derek says. "Did something else happen." There's no need to ask who 'she' is. Claudia Stilinski is still a big presence in their lives, even though they've had little to no direct contact with her.

 

"She wants to talk to me!" Stiles exclaims. "Like that's not a big fucking deal!"

 

"Whoa," Isaac says from his seat on the couch.

 

"Seriously?" Derek asks.

 

"Apparently!" Stiles shrills. He whirls around to start his marching again and staggers, Derek grabs him by the arm and pulls him down on the couch between him and Isaac.

 

"Sit down before you fall down," Derek says. "What happened? Did she call you?"

 

"Ha! No. Dad wouldn't give her my number," Stiles says. "She called him about something else and then tacked that on at the end."

 

"Did she fix the whole thing where she's legally dead yet?" Isaac asks.

 

"I don't think so," Stiles says. "Dad never said anything to me about it."

 

"Do you think you'll go see her?" Isaac asks. Stiles tries to jump to his feet, but Derek hold him back and pulls him into his side.

 

"Relax," he says. "Your heartbeat is going crazy."

 

"How can I relax with all this bullshit going on?!" Stiles asks.

 

"He's got a point there," Isaac says.

 

"You're not helping," Derek says. Isaac shrugs. Stiles fights a bit against Derek's hold, but eventually gives up and lets his head fall back against Derek's shoulder.

 

"I don't know if I want to see her," he says. "What she did... all I can think about when I imagine running into her somewhere is just... not good."

 

"I keep thinking about what it would be like if this was my mother," Isaac says. Derek and Stiles turn to look at him, he isn't looking in their direction. "I'd give anything to see her again, to talk to her."

 

"I felt the same way before I found out that she lied about everything," Stiles says bitterly. "After she died, all I wanted was for her to come back. But now that she's back... The fact that she's been lying to me and staying away from me all this time _on purpose_ just ruins everything I felt when she was dead." He swipes a hand across his eyes. Derek takes hold of his other hand and sweeps his thumb back and forth across the palm.

 

"I get that," Isaac says. "I think."

 

"I'd like to talk to my mother again," Derek says. "If only to apologize. But that's only based on the idea that she's been dead this whole time." That's partially a lie. A part of Derek, the part that remembers the sickening moment when he realized what had actually happened to his family and the part he'd played in it, would welcome the pain of finding out his mother has been alive all this time and just avoiding him. He'd still apologize even if that were the case. No matter how much therapy he has, or how many times Stiles tells him otherwise, Derek thinks there will always be a part of him that will think he is undeserving of forgiveness for what he did.

 

But Stiles has done nothing wrong. Stiles doesn't deserve that kind of pain.

 

"I wonder if she ever really loved me," Stiles says. "Or Dad."

 

"I'm sure she did," Isaac says. "Once."

 

"Isaac!" Derek exclaims. Isaac shrugs, Stiles sighs.

 

"All I'm saying," Isaac says, "is that someone who really loves someone wouldn't fake their own suicide and then play dead for ten years. Not without a good reason, anyway."

 

"You think she actually has a good reason?" Stiles asks.

 

"Do you?" Isaac asks.

 

"Honestly, anything short of life or death situations, I can't think of any reasons that I would accept," Stiles says.

 

"That's fair," Derek says. "What did your dad have to say about it? Or did he say anything?"

 

"He just said it was up to me," Stiles says. "He said he's coming at the whole situation from a completely different perspective, so he can't tell me what to do with my emotions or how to react to them."

 

"I wonder if she asked if she could talk to him at some point, too?"  Isaac muses.

 

"What would she gain from that?" Stiles asks. "She's already divorcing him, sounds like she's done with him."

 

***

 

Stiles gets a lot busier when his new semester starts.

 

It seems to make a nice distraction from this situation with his mother, and Derek can tell that his general mood improves quickly.

 

He even starts rambling again.

 

On Cora's first visit to the apartment since she got back from South America, about a week after Stiles' classes start, she actually lets Stiles ramble at her for a full 30 minutes before threatening to throw him out the window if he didn't shut up. Seemingly unbothered by this threat (business as usual in Stiles and Cora's relationship), Stiles goes back to whatever it was he'd been doing when Cora first showed up. Derek raises his eyebrows at Cora as soon as Stiles is out of the room.

 

"I think that's a new record for you guys," he says. "The last time he went on a tangent you cut him off after five minutes and said you'd break his kneecaps if he opened his mouth again." And that had happened only a week before she'd gone on her trip.

 

"Yeah, well," Cora says. "I know he's been down lately, and you looked like you were about to cry after the three-minute mark so I held out for as long as I could."

 

"I wasn't about to cry," Derek protested, listening for Stiles' location in the apartment to make sure he won't overhear this. "I just miss him rambling, that's all."

 

"Can't fool me, bro," Cora says, tapping a finger against the side of her nose. Derek flips her off and she laughs at him. Stiles soon returns, Derek assumes from the bedroom, to find Derek and Cora wrestling on the couch.

 

"Why're you guys having fun without me?" He asks, and immediately jumps on them to join in.

 

***

 

Derek decides, one Saturday morning, that if Stiles isn't going to produce their coffee table they're just going to have to go get a new one. Stiles' coursework has officially taken over the kitchen table, rendering it unusable for its intended purpose, and Derek is getting tired of having to eat his meals on his lap. The coffee table has been missing since the day Stiles found out that Claudia wanted to speak to him; Stiles still hasn't told Derek what happened to it, and Derek's pretty sure he'll never find out.

 

It's Stiles that suggests going to the Wal-Mart in Beacon Heights for a replacement, and that they can get new throw pillows while they're there. Derek gives him a long look when he hears this.

 

"Are you sure?" He asks. Because Stiles hasn't been in Beacon Heights since That Day, and even suggesting it now has him looking a bit pale and sweaty. But he nods when Derek asks.

 

"Yes," he says. "I can't just keep avoiding the whole place forever. I don't know how long _she_ plans to be living there, but I might as well get used to seeing her around if I have to."

 

"I'm proud of you," Derek says, with a quick kiss to the side of his head. Stiles blushes briefly.

 

"It's not that big a deal," he mumbles. But it is.

 

They don't see Claudia at Wal-Mart, that day, thankfully.

 

They end up running into her fiancé and son, though, because of course they do.

 

Derek is able to smell them before he actually sees them, so they have that advantage at least. He doesn't know what it is he's smelling at first, he just knows that he recognizes a scent similar to Stiles' core scent on the air. It's familiar to him, but wrong somehow. He eventually figures it out, so is able to warn Stiles before they actually catch sight of the pair in the middle of the home décor department.

 

Claudia's fiancé, Derek knows he was told his name but he can't remember it now, spots them before the small boy at his side does. A shocked expression crosses his face when he sees Stiles, who had frozen with a pillow clutched to his chest when Derek had told him just who was nearby. Then the boy notices them.

 

"Oh!" He exclaims. "Daddy!" He yanks on the man's sleeve. "That's Stiles! Look!"

 

Stiles drops the pillow in favour of grabbing onto Derek. Derek wraps a protective arm around his waist and holds on tight as the little boy, who is very obviously Stiles' half-brother now that Derek is seeing (and smelling) him in person, drags his father over. Stiles is trembling and has gone worryingly pale, but he's still upright and facing the coming storm head on.

 

The fiancé, to his credit, looks uncomfortable about this whole situation.

 

"He and his friend look busy, Grady," the man says. "Maybe we should talk to them another time."

 

"But they're here now!" Grady whines, pouting. Despite their different fathers, Grady looks so much like Stiles that Derek can't help finding him adorable. John had always said that Stiles took after his mother in the looks department, and Derek has seen pictures, apparently her genes are very dominant.

 

"He's got a point," Stiles says weakly. He clears his throat and crouches down a bit to get on Grady's level, bracing himself on Derek's leg for support. Grady looks delighted. "Hi, so you're Grady."

 

"Yup!" Grady chirps, nodding like a bobblehead. "And you're Stiles! You're my brother!" Stiles smiles, but Derek can feel the mixed emotions rolling off of him in waves. He presses his leg harder against Stiles, and Stiles leans in in response.

 

"Yeah, it's good to meet you," Stiles says.

 

"I know!" Grady exclaims. "I was only waiting for forever to see you! I'm five and I like dogs. Do you have a dog?" Derek locks eyes with the fiancé (the name is still escaping him, something that starts with a P, he's sure... Percy?). Forever to a five-year-old can mean a lot of things depending on how prone the kid is to exaggerating. Claudia has obviously told Grady about Stiles, but how long ago was that?

 

The fiancé shrugs at Derek. "He's been looking forward to this for a while," he says.

 

He looks _very_ awkward with the whole situation. Derek narrows his eyes at him. He wants to know what he knows, but he doesn't want to interrogate the man in front of Grady. He does, however, want to get Stiles out of here as quick as possible so he can have some space to process this whole thing.

 

They've already got the coffee table, Derek has mostly resigned himself to the fact that throw pillows are obviously cursed objects and they shouldn't bother trying to replace the ones they have. Derek can deal with ugly throw pillows if it means that Stiles will stop being ambushed in the middle of shopping trips.

 

"I don't have a dog," Derek hears Stiles saying. "I do have a wolf sometimes, though." Derek purposely knocks his knee into Stiles' head; Stiles only laughs at him.

 

"Wow!" Grady breathes, looking up at Stiles in admiration. He looks up at his dad. "Can we get a wolf?"

 

"Your mother won't let you have a dog," the fiancé says, "she definitely won't let you get a wolf. Say bye to Stiles for now and let him finish his shopping. We have to hurry up here if you want to have time to get an ice cream after."

 

"Yes! Ice cream!" Grady exclaims. "Bye, Stiles! Bye Stiles' friend!" He waves over his shoulder as he heads off down the aisle. His father hurries after him, throwing Stiles and Derek an apologetic look before he goes. Soon Stiles and Derek are alone in the aisle. Derek gives Stiles a hand getting back to his feet.

 

"So, that just happened," Stiles says. He sounds dazed.

 

"Yep," Derek says. He tracks Grady and his father until their scents and sounds get mixed in with those of other shoppers and he loses them. "Do you need to talk about it?"

 

"I think I just want to go back home and pretend the world doesn't exist for a while," Stiles says.

 

"C'mon," Derek says. "We'll get some junk food while we're here and make a day of it."

 

"Thanks," Stiles says.

 

And the day had started off so well, too.


	11. Chapter 11

_Stiles was surprised to get called down to the office in the middle of the day._

 

_"But I didn't do anything!" He protested as he walked into the front office. "Today was a good day!"_

 

_He froze in front of the secretary's desk when he caught sight of his father and one of the other deputies standing at attention beside the desk. His gaze darted back and forth between them._

 

_"Am I being arrested?" Stiles asked. John, looking more worried than Stiles had ever seen him, gave him a quick smile and motioned him closer._

 

_"You're not being arrested," he said. "Or should you be?"_

 

_"No! Nope! Definitely not," Stiles said. "What are you here for though? Are you arresting Jackson?" He moved over to John's side and hugged him around the waist. The other deputy, Johnson, raised an eyebrow at John. John ignored him._

 

_"No one's getting arrested," John said. "I just have to ask you some questions."_

 

_"Am I a witness?" Stiles asked, beaming._

 

_"Sort of," John said. "Just a few questions and then you can go back to class. And you'll be going to Scott's house after school."_

 

_"Sweet!" Stiles asked. "Why though?"_

 

_"Well, I'll have to work late and your mother won't be home," John said. "I don't know how long she'll be gone, though, so Mrs. McCall is going to take you by the house to pack a bag. Make sure you pack your meds and enough underwear for a few days."_

 

_"Dad!" Stiles hissed, shooting a look to the secretary, who was pretending to not pay any attention to them._

 

_"Alright, alright," John said. "Just making sure. Anyway, questions."_

 

_"Witness statement!" Stiles cheered._

 

_"No witness statement."_

 

_"Aw."_

 

_"Just some questions, about your mother." John led Stiles over to the row of chairs sitting against the office wall; they took seats at one end while Johnson sat at the other end. Stiles looked up on John expectantly when they sat down, John held his gaze and tried not to let his worry bleed through. He had to be careful about this; Stiles was only 10, but he wasn't an idiot. Who even knew where Claudia was or what she'd done? There was no sense in worrying Stiles before it was absolutely necessary._

 

_"What was Mom doing before you went to school this morning?" John asked._

 

_"Uhh," Stiles said. "She woke me up, then she made me breakfast, then she made me take my medicine, then she made my lunch, and then... I think that's it."_

 

_"Okay," John said. "Did she tell you that she'd be going somewhere?"_

 

_"Nope," Stiles said. "Or maybe she did, I wasn't listening to all of it 'cause she let me watch TV while I ate breakfast." John nodded, thinking. Maybe Claudia had said something to Stiles that morning, maybe she hadn't. Maybe she'd used the TV as a distraction while she got ready to do… whatever it was she did. Hopefully he'd get the chance to ask._

 

"John, this is Claudia. Listen... I'm sorry, but I really have to go. I just called to say goodbye. Don't come looking for me, you won't find me."

 

_John's blood had turned to ice in his veins when the sheriff had called him into his office to listen to the voicemail Claudia had left on the station's main answering machine. The sheriff had immediately sent deputies over to the Stilinski home while John headed for the elementary school._

 

_He was sure that Claudia would never do anything to hurt Stiles, or take him anywhere without letting him know, but he had to be sure._

 

_"Did Mom go somewhere?" Stiles asked. John shook his head to clear it and focused on his son. Stiles stared up at him, Claudia's beautiful brown eyes looking huge in his face._

 

_"Yeah," John said. "She had to go away for a bit, but we'll be alright by ourselves until she gets back, eh?"_

 

***

 

Dad's next day off is on a Friday, two days after Stiles first meets his half-brother. Stiles decides to play hooky that day and heads over to his childhood home for a visit.

 

Stiles pulls Derek's Camaro up the driveway and sits there for a minute, trying to figure out exactly what he wants to say.

 

He and Dad haven't really talked much about what's happening with Claudia. Not really. Maybe now is the time for it.

 

Dad opens the front door to the house as Stiles climbs out of the car.

 

"Still not using the Jeep?" Dad asks.

 

"Nah," Stiles says. "I think Derek hid the keys. You goin' anywhere?"

 

"Come on in," Dad says. He leaves the door open and moves further into the house. Stiles walks in and closes the door behind himself. He always likes coming here, even though it's not really 'home' anymore. It's 'Dad's House' now, but still a comfortable place to be. Nothing much has changed since he left, or since he was a kid, really.

 

Though he can't help but notice a few blank spaces on the walls where pictures used to hang. He feels a pang in his chest as he follows Dad to the kitchen table and takes a seat.

 

"I see you've redecorated a bit?" he asks cautiously.

 

"Yeah," Dad says, sitting in the chair next to Stiles' and not really looking up. "I decided to take a few of the pictures of your mother down. Melissa thought it would be good to put those away until I felt I could look at them without getting… overly emotional."

 

"Overly emotional?" Stiles asks.

 

"You told them to hide my booze," Dad says with a shrug. "I had to do something."

 

"I can lend you my bat," Stiles says. "You can take a swing at the Jeep if you want." Dad chuckles and pats Stiles' shoulder.

 

"Let's leave the poor thing alone, huh?" he asks. "It didn't do anything to us." Stiles grins at him. Then he lets it fade.

 

"So, uh," he says. "Me and Derek ran into, um, what's-his-name, the fiancé? The other day? He was at Wal-Mart with the kid."

 

"Oh yeah?" Dad asks, he crosses his arms on the table and slouches over. "How did that go?"

 

"Good? I guess? I'm not really sure," Stiles says. "The kid knew who I was though. Grady. It's kinda weird having a brother now, after all this time. I'm not sure what to do with that."

 

"You used to ask me for siblings when you were a kid," Dad says. "I kept trying to make you settle for Scott, but you wouldn't have that because he didn't live with us. I'm not sure when you stopped asking though."

 

"I don't even remember any of that," Stiles says. "He seems like a good kid though. I'm not sure about the fiancé…"

 

"Perry," Dad says. "Perry Kirkland. I looked him up."

 

"Ooh," Stiles says. "Spill."

 

"Not much to say," Dad says. "No criminal record. Works in tech. Public Facebook profile is full of memes and cat videos."

 

"Sounds like she downgraded." Dad huffs out a laugh. "Do you think he knows?"

 

"I'd say he probably knows some of it. You say the kid knew who you were?"

 

"Yeah, he's the one that came up to us. He knew my name and that I'm his brother. Which is still a very weird thing to say about someone who isn't Scott."

 

"How does Scott feel about having to share the title?"

 

"He kept sending me sadface emojis until I promised him that he was my favourite brother." Dad smiles and Stiles chuckles. There's a lull of silence between them. Stiles can hear birds outside and the drone of someone mowing their lawn.

 

"Dad," he says, eventually.

 

"Hm?" Dad asks.

 

"Were… You and Mom, you guys were happy, right?" Stiles doesn't look up at his father, instead focusing on a little dent in the table top. "I mean… Obviously something was up if she wanted to leave. But I don't remember things being bad enough that she'd have to fake her own death just to get away." Dad sighs and Stiles peeks up at him through his eyelashes. Dad isn't looking at him, he's staring out the kitchen window.

 

"I'll be honest, our marriage wasn't perfect," he says. "There were some things we disagreed on, and there were a few major things that we definitely needed to deal with. But I don't think there was anything going on that was bad enough that she'd feel the need to disappear to get away from them. But maybe I just missed something? I spent so many years looking back, searching for signs I'd missed that she was depressed or desperate for a way out. I don't know what to think now."

 

"I always looked back to try to figure out what I did to push her over the edge," Stiles says. "Like, not literally. I know I wasn't the easiest kid ever, but I couldn't've been that bad." Dad reaches out and grabs Stiles' chin, turning his face towards him.

 

"Listen to me," he says. "Even if she really had killed herself, it wasn't about anything you did. You were a child, you didn't do anything wrong. You were a little shit at times, and drove us absolutely crazy, but you were far from some kind of monster. What she did was never your fault." Tears fill Stiles' eyes and he blinks quickly to keep them from falling. Dad nods at him and lets him go. It's only when Dad's hand is dropping back down to the table that Stiles notices it: the tan line on his left ring finger.

 

Stiles' heart skips a beat and his stomach flips.

 

"Your ring," he says, pointing. Dad looks down at his hand and a sad smile crosses his face. Stiles can only stare, stunned. He can't remember a time ever seeing his dad without his wedding ring. Even after his mother's death, Stiles knows that his father never took his ring off even once. Seeing him without it, and what it might possibly mean, shocks Stiles to his core.

 

"Yeah," Dad says, rubbing his thumb over the discoloured skin. "With everything going on I decided it was time I took it off. Really, I should've done it years ago, but..." He shrugs.

 

"Well, um," Stiles forces out through a suddenly dry throat. "Maybe it's time you got back in the dating game? You'd make a pretty good catch."

 

"Now, now, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," Dad says. "I think I'm just gonna take some time to get used to being single. Mentally, I mean." Stiles eyes fill with tears and they soon spill over to run down his cheeks. He turns away to wipe his eyes. He really doesn't want this to be his reaction to this new step in his father's emotional healing journey, but he can't help it. Dad pulls him into a hug and Stiles gives up and cries openly into his shoulder, clutching at the back of his shirt.

 

"Hey, hey," Dad soothes. "It's alright. We'll be okay, Stiles."

 

Stiles only cries harder.

 

***

 

_"Jesus, Claudia, he's not doing it on purpose!" John exclaimed._

 

_Claudia didn't answer him, just threw a Lego construction into the plastic Lego bin so hard that it separated into two pieces. John cringed at the loud crashing sound it made as it hit the other Lego pieces in the bin, sure that Stiles heard that all the way in his bedroom._

 

_"He needs to learn to listen, John," Claudia said. "And he never will if you keep giving him chance after chance."_

 

_"You heard the doctor," John said. "It's not that he's not listening, it's that he has a hard time concentrating when people are talking to him. In one ear and out the other sometimes, that's what he said. That's what the meds are supposed to help with."_

 

_"He seems to be able to listen just fine when he's watching TV or playing with Scott," Claudia groused. "He has no problems then." John sighed and left the room. He couldn't deal with Claudia when she was like this. She'd already come back from shopping in some kind of mood, and things had only devolved from there._

 

_Just once John would've liked to be able to spend his entire day off with his family without having to run interference between his wife and son._

 

_John went upstairs and knocked on Stiles' bedroom door. Stiles had slammed the door shut in outrage after Claudia had sent him upstairs for not cleaning up before dinner. John had always heard that the teen years were supposed to be the most difficult and emotionally charged, but Stiles was only seven, it was way too early in the parenting game for this bullshit._

 

_"Stiles," John called, "can I come in? Please?"_

 

_"Is Mommy gonna yell at me again?" Stiles asked, voice thick with tears. John muffled a groan and let his forehead rest against the door._

 

_"No, Mommy's not gonna yell at you," John said. "It's just me."_

 

_"Are you gonna yell?" Stiles asked._

 

_"No." John heard the padding of little feet across the floor as Stiles walked over to let him into the room. Stiles looked up at John, eyes wet and red-rimmed, with tear tracks running down his cheeks._

 

_"I said I was sorry," Stiles said, lower lip wobbling. "But she said I was doing it on purpose! But I wasn't!"_

 

_"I know," John said. He heard Claudia's footsteps approaching the stairs, crossing over from the living room into the kitchen, so he ushered Stiles back into the bedroom and closed the door behind them. He led Stiles over to the bed and sat them both down on it._

 

_"Listen, Stiles," John said. "Remember how we keep going to the doctors? And he tells us things and gives us medicine for you to take so that you can do better in school and listen better at home?"_

 

_"Yeah," Stiles said, wiping his nose on his bare arm, and then on his bedspread. John eyed the bedspread but didn't say anything about that, now wasn't the time._

 

_"Well," John paused, he wasn't sure how much of this he could explain to a child. Especially one like Stiles who, while certainly intelligent, probably wouldn't be able to understand everything John was telling him. Or wouldn't be able to listen to it. Even now, while John watched, Stiles' gaze left him and wandered over to something on his right. Clearly his meds were in the process of wearing off, if they hadn't completely already. "Stiles," he said, and gave the boy a gentle shake. Stiles' eyes snapped back to him._

 

_"Do you know there's a full moon tonight?" He asked. "Maybe there'll be werewolves out!"_

 

_"There aren't any normal wolves in California, never mind werewolves," John said. "But I want you to listen to me."_

 

_"I was!" Stiles exclaimed._

 

_"You were," John said. "And then you weren't. That's what Mommy means when she says you don't listen. And sometimes I say that, and sometimes your teachers say that. We know now that it's not your fault and that you're trying your best, but it's still frustrating sometimes. Like how you get angry when you have problems tying your shoes; it's not the shoes' fault, but you still get frustrated."_

 

_"But I don't yell at them and throw their Lego around," Stiles said. So he had heard that._

 

_"That's true," John said. "And no one should yell at you just because they're frustrated. But people are only human and sometimes we all have to be patient with each other." Stiles nodded and John tugged him over into his lap for a hug. "I'm sure Mommy doesn't mean to yell at you when she gets frustrated."_

 

_"I don't think she likes me much sometimes," Stiles whispered, burying his face in John's chest. John's heart broke a little for his son, who was always trying his best, even while trying others' patience._

 

_"Mommy loves you very much, Stiles, and so do I," John said fiercely. "Never forget that."_

 

*** 

 

Derek is watching TV when Stiles returns home. He initially smiles when Stiles walks in, but that smile immediately drops when he gets a look at Stiles' face, which Stiles is sure must be some kind of disaster. Derek's up on his feet and taking Stiles' face in his hands before Stiles has barely closed the front door.

 

"What happened," Derek demands. He runs his thumbs under Stiles' slightly swollen eyelids, even though the tears have long-since stopped. "Did something happen with your dad? Is he okay?"

 

"He's fine," Stiles rasps. He clears his throat. "He's probably doing better than me right now. It's just... He's not wearing his wedding ring anymore." He feels the tears come again and he pitches forward into Derek's arms. Derek wraps him up tightly and rubs a soothing hand up and down his back.

 

"I didn't even think about that," Derek says. "Whether he'd do that or not."

 

"I don't know why I'm like this," Stiles says. "She's already been gone for years, he's technically been single all this time. But he's always had that ring on, I can't remember him ever taking it off. It just... It really feels like the end of something. I don't know how to explain it."

 

"It clearly meant something to both of you," Derek says. He leads Stiles over the couch and they both drop down on it, Stiles practically in Derek's lap.

 

"It was Melissa's idea," Stiles says, after a few minutes of sniffly silence. "She told him that she kept hers on for a while after Scott's dad left, but eventually she came to terms with the end of her marriage and when she was ready she took it off and mailed it off to him. I never really noticed that she never wore one."

 

"Did your dad say what he's gonna do now?" Derek asks.

 

"He said he's not ready for dating," Stiles says. "I'm not sure if I'm ready for him to date either. I know it's not my decision either way, but I'm still trying to get over him being officially single again in the middle of all this other bullshit happening."

 

"This might not be a good time to say this, but I've always thought that Peter might've had an eye on your dad," Derek says. Stiles lets out a choked laugh that seems to surprise the both of them. Derek's smile is teasing and Stiles sticks a finger in his face.

 

"Don't you dare tell him about this," he says. "If he comes back just to start sniffing around my dad I swear I will put him back in the ground."

 

"What, you don't want to be my step-cousin?" Derek asks with a smirk. Stiles leans back to look Derek in the face, jaw working.

 

"You're a terrible person and I hate you," he says, deadpan. Derek's smirk widens and he shakes his head. He pulls Stiles back to him, pressing his lips to the top of Stiles' head and resting one hand over Stiles' heart.

 

"I know," he says.

 

***

 

"I think I'm gonna do it," Stiles announces suddenly.

 

"Hm?" Derek asks. He's stretched out in bed half-asleep. It's after midnight, but Stiles is still wide-awake. And wired. "Do what?"

 

"I'm gonna talk to her," Stiles says. That seems to get Derek's full attention, or it could be that his heart is now trying to pound its way out of his chest. Derek props himself up on one elbow.

 

"Are you sure?" He asks.

 

"Yeah," Stiles says. "I think I really have to so I can start putting all this behind me. I don't know what I'm gonna say yet, or what I want to hear, but I really do need to do this. Otherwise I don't think I'll ever move on from it." Stiles rolls over and cuddles into Derek's chest.

 

"I'm proud of you," Derek says.

 

"I'm proud of me too," Stiles says. "I think. I really don't know how this is gonna go. Hopefully I won't get there and just cry all over her and make her think that I missed her and that I'm glad she's back."

 

"Do you miss her?" Derek asks.

 

"Not really. Not anymore," Stiles says. "I did miss her, before all this. But knowing what I know now, I only miss the idea of her, I think. The person I thought she was, the relationship I could've had with her if she didn't do what she did."

 

"That's fair," Derek says. "Do you need me or anyone else to go with you?"

 

"No," Stiles says. "But I'd like it if you came. For moral support. And to drag me out if the tears really do start."

 

"Just tell me the time and place," Derek says.


	12. Chapter 12

Days go by. Weeks go by. Life moves on.

 

Claudia's legal death is reversed and her old identity is restored. Then the divorce goes through. Claudine Smith goes back to Claudia Stilinski goes back to Claudia Gajos.

 

Stiles, Derek, and Parrish take John out for drinks the night the divorce goes through. A bit of a depressing celebration to take his mind off the whole situation for a while. Stiles and John get thoroughly smashed, Derek and Parrish sneak in their supernatural-grade liquor and manage to get a buzz. Melissa eventually comes to rescue them all and deliver them to their respective destinations.

 

***

 

Stiles doesn't bring up contacting his mother again after the first time, though Derek can tell he's still thinking about it.

 

Derek mentions it to John when they run into each other in the grocery store one day.

 

"He hasn't said anything to me about it," John says. "And he'd have to, unless he has a way to contact her that I don't know about."

 

"He doesn't as far as I know," Derek says. He drops a box of Pop-Tarts in his cart. "He doesn't mention her at all, actually. But I think that's what he's using the therapy for."

 

"Yeah," John says. "My therapist won't let that go with me, either."

 

"Have you heard from Claudia recently?" Derek asks.

 

"Nope," John says. "Not a peep since the divorce went through. I'm not complaining, I think it's high time we all moved on. I feel like what we need is a minor supernatural disturbance just to get everyone recalibrated and focused on something else for a bit."

 

"I'm not sure a 'minor supernatural disturbance' is ever an option for Beacon Hills," Derek says. "We seem to only attract the really big and weird stuff." John makes a face.

 

"Good point. Probably better to not tempt fate," he says.

 

They part ways after a bit and Derek finishes his shopping. When he arrives home and pulls into his designated parking spot, he notices that the Jeep is uncovered. He gets out of the Camaro and eyes the Jeep. It doesn't look any more or less banged up since the time Stiles took his bat to it. It also smells strongly of bleach and cleaner, both inside and out. He peers in through one of the windows and finds the interior cleaner than he's ever seen it.

 

Derek wonders about it as he carries the groceries upstairs and into the apartment. Stiles is sitting on the couch, a bunch of papers spread out over the coffee table.

 

"You cleaned the Jeep?" Derek asks, kicking the door shut behind him. Stiles looks up when he enters and then gets up to take some of the grocery bags. He follows Derek into the kitchen.

 

"Yeah," Stiles says. "I've decided to get rid of it." Derek sets the groceries on the kitchen counter (the table it still covered in Stiles' school paraphernalia) and shoots Stiles a surprised look.

 

"Really?" He asks.

 

"Yup," Stiles says. "Also I want your opinion about what new car I should get."

 

"You're sure about getting rid of the Jeep?" Derek asks.

 

"I'm sure," Stiles says. "I've thought hard about it. I have some good memories of that Jeep. _Very_ good memories." He smirks at Derek and waggles his eyebrows, but soon sobers up. "But knowing about what my mother did just overshadows all that. Now it's only a constant reminder of what she did, and how she really feels about me and Dad. I can't see it as anything more than a prop that was used to do something that hurt me for so long."

 

"My dad agrees with me," Stiles continues, after a short pause. "He said he'll be sad to see it go, but he'll probably be sadder if it stays. He said he'd help pay for a new car if I wanted. I think I'll take him with me when I buy it; some father-son car buying bonding we didn't do when I was a teenager."

 

"Sounds like a good time," Derek says. "What are you thinking of looking at?"

 

"Probably not another Jeep," Stiles says. "Nothing as sexy as the Camaro, but I'm aiming for large backseat space."

 

Derek laughs.

 

***

 

It's not long before Derek is back in the Beacon Heights Wal-Mart as the saga of the throw pillows continues.

 

He's on his own, Stiles busy with school work. This time he's determined to actually leave with throw pillows, come hell or high emotions. As soon as he walks into the store, he makes a beeline for the bedding department, probably scaring a few shoppers on the way over.

 

He's looking over the selection when a throat clears next to him.

 

It's Perry, the fiancé.

 

Of course.

 

"Hi," Perry says. "You're Stiles' friend, right?"

 

"Boyfriend," Derek corrects him. "Just give me a second here." He grabs three normal-looking pillows, and then a few novelty ones and a Spiderman one, and shoves them all in his cart. Then he turns back to Perry and raises an eyebrow in expectation. Perry blinks at the cart for a second before looking up at Derek, who is pleased to notice that he's actually a few inches taller than the other man.

 

"I, um, I was wondering if I could talk to you about something," Perry says. "I was hoping to get a hold of Stiles, but neither me nor Claudine can get his number."

 

"Claudine?" Derek asks. "Isn't she back to Claudia now?" 

 

"I only knew her as Claudine," Perry says with a grimace. "This has all been a bit of a shock."

 

"Well that's an understatement," Derek says. Perry grimaces again and nods. They decide to head over to the in-store coffee shop for a chat. Derek picks the table nearest the exit and plants the cart full of throw pillows right next to him as Perry goes to the counter to get drinks. Then he sends a text to Stiles.

 

**To: Stiles**

**Ran into the fiance at the walmart, now were talking**

The first reply comes seconds later and is just a string of random letters. The following replies are much more coherent.

 

**From: Stiles**

**OMG I CANT GET AWAY FROM THIS LECTURE RN FML**

 

**From: Stiles**

**TELL ME EVERYTHING ONCE YOURE BACK**

 

**From: Stiles**

**ALSO BRING ME A SMOOTHIE PLEASE THX ♥♥**

 

Derek rolls his eyes and pockets his phone just as Perry returns with two coffees. He hands one to Derek and starts pouring sugar packets in his.

 

"So I wanted to ask what you know about Stiles' childhood," Perry says, not bothering to beat around the bush. Derek's eyebrows pop up in surprise.

 

"His childhood," he says.

 

"Yeah," Perry says. "When he was young, before his mother left."

 

"Before she faked her own suicide, you mean," Derek says flatly. Perry flinches so hard he almost knocks his coffee over.

 

"Yeah, that," Perry says.

 

"Well, I've got a question for you," Derek says. "What do you know about Stiles' childhood?"

 

"Nothing, really," Perry says. "I only found out about him not long before we all moved here. Claudine doesn't really talk about him much."

 

"Well..." Derek's not sure what to say to that. "Stiles didn't really talk about Claudia much either. He used to remember her fondly when he did, though."

 

"Used to, huh," Perry says. Derek studies the man. He seems meek, unthreatening. He's on the small side, with dark hair and eyes. It strikes Derek that this man is kind of the opposite of John Stilinski. Physically, anyway. There's a softness in his eyes that reminds Derek of John.

 

There's also a sense of unease about him.

 

Derek leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. "What are you asking me about, here? Really? You didn't know Stiles existed until now, you don't care about his childhood."

 

"I'm just..."

 

"You might as well spit it out now."

 

"I'm just looking for the signs!" Perry exclaims, and this time he really does knock over his coffee. It's a to-go cup so the only mess is the spilled liquid, which Perry mops up with a sheepish glance around.

 

"When you say 'signs'," Derek says.

 

"Look," Perry says, shoving his used napkins into the now empty cup. "I only met Claudine about seven or so years ago. We were together a few years before we had Grady. I didn't even know she'd ever had a whole other life until I asked her to marry me last year. Then she told me that she used to be someone else, and she'd had a family and she wasn't sure how that would affect a new marriage."

 

"Wait, wait," Derek says. "Let me get this straight: the only reason that she decided to come back was so that she could legally dump her old family to create a new one?"

 

"I know it sounds bad," Perry says.

 

"It sounds _very_ bad," Derek says.

 

"I... yeah," Perry says. "I had to do a lot of soul-searching once I figured that out. But... I do love her and I want to marry her. I just worry..."

 

"That she could do the same thing to you?" Derek asks.

 

"Yeah," Perry says. "I hate to think that about her, but I mean... she already did it once. What's to say she won't do it again? How could I put Grady through something like that? I can't imagine it was easy for Stiles."

 

"It wasn't," Derek says. "But that's not my business to tell. I will say, though, that her coming back? Probably just made things worse. And for John too. You really need to think seriously about what it would mean to have to live with this person who did something like this. I don't know you, but I don't think you deserve to go through what John went through. I definitely know that Grady doesn't deserve to go through what Stiles went through."

 

"I know," Perry says. He looks down at the table and starts fidgeting with his coffee cup. Derek wait for a few minutes, but gets up when it doesn't look like Perry has anything else to say.

 

***

 

Stiles is waiting for him when he gets home, _with the throw pillows_ , and immediately jumps on him.

 

"You need to tell me everything!" He exclaims.

 

"You're gonna make me drop your smoothie," Derek says. "Also I got the pillows."

 

"Awesome, we'll burn the old ones later," Stiles says. "What did the fiancé want?" Derek shoves the smoothie he bought in Stiles' hands and starts herding him towards the couch.

 

"You might as well sit down because I don't think you're gonna like a lot of this," Derek says.

 

"When you say I'm not gonna like a lot of this..." Stiles says. Derek pushes Stiles down on the couch and then takes a seat next to him. Stiles starts chewing on the smoothie straw and stares at Derek.

 

"So the fiancé found me at Wal-Mart," Derek says.

 

"We really need to stop going there," Stiles says.

 

"I don't think he was actually looking for either of us, but he wanted to talk to me," Derek says. "Actually, he wanted to talk to you but he can't get your number. He wanted to know about your childhood. With your mother." Stiles narrows his eyes in thought and tries to take a sip through his mangled straw.

 

"My childhood doesn't have anything to do with him," Stiles says. "He's got a kid with my mother, if he's wondering what she's like as a parent he basically has a front-row seat."

 

"I think that's the problem," Derek says. "He says that he didn't know about you or your dad until about a year ago, after he proposed to her. If she's been hiding that from him for so long, what else is she hiding from him. Right?"

 

"You mean what are the signs that she's planning a whole new life that doesn't include them?" Stiles asks. "His guess is as good as mine. I can't remember anything that pointed to that happening to us. I don't think Dad can either."

 

"Yeah, I figured," Derek says. "Also he says he's still going to marry her even knowing all this."

 

"Of course he is," Stiles says. "Well, I don't care too much about what happens to him, but I don't want Grady to get hurt if she decides to get tired of him. Or whatever it was that made her want to leave me." Derek stretches an arm across the back of the couch and Stiles slides in under it. Stiles doesn't act as affected, anymore, when he brings up his mother's abandonment, but Derek knows that it still deeply hurts him to think of it.

 

"Whatever made her want to leave you was all her business and is all on her," Derek says, resting his cheek on the top of Stiles' head.

 

"Yeah," Stiles says. "So, what was it that he said that you think I'm not gonna like? Not that knowing that she might be setting up another kid for what she did to me isn't upsetting, but like, it's not really a completely out-there thought to have."

 

"It's about the reason she actually came back," Derek says.

 

"I'd just assumed it was to get her old identity back, I don't know how dangerous it would be to live very long-term with a technically false identity," Stiles says. "Or that she realized that it was possible that the truth would come out at some point. I don't know what social media was like back when she first left, but I definitely know it's way more of a thing now. Our paths would've crossed online eventually, or Grady and me would've found each other at some point."

 

"Not... quite," Derek says.

 

"Alright, let's have it," Stiles says. "What new thing did we learn about how little she cares for me and my dad and our feelings?"

 

"The only reason she came back was so that she could reclaim her identity as Claudia Stilinski/Gajos, whatever, and then formally divorce your father so that she could marry her new guy and not have that blow up in her face later." Derek holds in a breath as Stiles tilts his head up to stare at him with wide, wounded eyes. Stiles swallows hard, and Derek hears his throat click.

 

"So, wait," he says, voice sounding strangled. "She brought herself back from the dead, put me and Dad through all this bullshit, just so that she could officially abandon us. _For a second time?!_ " The plastic smoothie cup in his hands creaks so Derek takes it away from him before he makes it explode all over the couch.

 

"Sounds that way," Derek says.

 

"Wha- what a _complete asshole_!" Stiles exclaims. "Who even does that?! Did she even think about how that would affect us?! 'Hi, I've been dead for 10 years, but now I'm just popping back in for a bit to drive home the fact that I couldn't care less about you'?! And she just expected us to be _okay with that?!_ "

 

"As bad as it sounds, I think you got it right when you said that she didn't care," Derek says. "She also clearly didn't think it through about the effect this would have on her new family. I don't think she cares about anyone other than herself. I don't know if that makes it better or not." Stiles seems to run out of steam. He slumps back against Derek's chest and covers his face with his hands.

 

"Let's not tell my dad about this," Stiles says.

 

"Yeah," Derek says.

 

***

 

Derek wakes up alone in bed one chilly October morning.

 

He finds Stiles at the kitchen table looking down at his phone. Stiles looks up when Derek enters the room. He seems like he's vibrating in place and there's a fire in his eyes.

 

"I just spoke to my dad," Stiles says. "I'm gonna meet up with _her_. Tomorrow morning. Get ready."

 

Derek nods.


	13. Chapter 13

_Stiles waited until after the third date to invite Derek over for a serious talk._

 

_Derek seemed a bit nervous when Stiles answered the door to him and led him upstairs to his bedroom. They sat down on the bed, leaning against the headboard, and Stiles laid his head on Derek's shoulder and stared straight ahead._

 

_"Before we go any further with this... us," he said. "I need to tell you something important." Derek looked a bit nervous. Stiles reached down and took his hand, interlocking their fingers. It seemed to relax Derek somewhat, though he was still a bit tense._

 

_"Okay," he said._

 

_"Don't worry," Stiles said. "It's not about anything you did."_

 

_"Is it your dad?" Derek asked. "I know he's still not crazy about us dating."_

 

_"Dude, he's fine with us dating," Stiles said. "He loves you, seriously. He's still just a bit awkward about catching us coming, like, this close, to desecrating the back of the Jeep." Stiles held up his free hand with his index finger and thumb about an inch apart. Derek blushed. That night out in the preserve a few weeks ago, in a spot that Derek had sworn up and down would be extremely private, had ended up being an awkward moment for everyone involved._

 

_Stiles was just glad that it had been his father who'd caught them, and not Parrish, otherwise he'd never hear the end of it._

 

_"If you say so," Derek said._

 

_"No, really, this is completely unrelated," Stiles said. "It's just, it's about my mother." He took a deep breath and let it out in a rush of words. "She didn't die because she was sick. She killed herself." Derek's eyes widened and he squeezed Stiles' hand, but didn't otherwise react. Stiles still wasn't looking at him._

 

_"I don't tell a lot of people this, I'm not sure who even knows in town," Stiles continued. "My dad and the sheriff's station worked hard to keep it a secret, mostly because of me, so I don't know how far the truth actually went. But I know I never told anyone aside from Scott."_

 

_"That seems like a lot to deal with," Derek said._

 

_"It was," Stiles said. "It gets easier over time. It's not so bad now, but there are still bad days. Anyway, I needed to tell you that so it makes sense when I tell you this." And now he looked Derek straight in the eye. "If there's ever a time where you aren't happy in this relationship, with me, anything, I need you to tell me right away. I need to know so that I can help fix it, whatever that means, before it's too late."_

 

_"Stiles..." Derek's eyes softened. "You don't have to worry about me killing myself. If I haven't done it by now, I probably won't."_

 

_"I know, I think," Stiles said, and his eyes started filling with tears. "But both me and my dad keep thinking back over and over to see what signs we missed. She must've been in so much pain to do what she did, but neither of us saw it. I don't care how unlikely it is that you'll do something like that. I love you too much to take that risk. Promise me you'll say something if you have to. Just... promise me." Derek gathered Stiles into his arms and buried his face in Stiles' neck._

 

_"I promise," Derek said. "No matter what happens, I'll talk to you first. As long as you do the same for me. I love you too much to lose you, too."_

 

***  

 

Stiles pulls the Jeep up in front of the Starbucks in Beacon Heights. He carefully extracts himself from the front seat and makes sure to lock the door behind himself, pocketing the keys. He pats the Jeep's hood as he walks onto the sidewalk.

 

In some ways he's sad to think that he'll never drive the Jeep again, and that it's no longer a treasured memento from his beloved mother. But he knows now that he'll never be able to look at it that way again, and that it's better off with someone else. They've had a good run together, but now it's time to say goodbye.

 

He looks over as Derek parks the Camaro into the next parking space over. He smiles at Stiles as he gets out.

 

"You ready?" He asks.

 

"Yeah," Stiles says, looking at the Starbucks. He can't see Claudia through the big front picture window, but he knows she's in there. "I just want to get this done and over with and then we can all go on with our lives with only minimal emotional trauma."

 

"Until the next thing comes up," Derek says.

 

"Naturally," Stiles says. Because there's always a 'next thing' in Beacon Hills. Stiles reaches out to take Derek's hand and then leads the way into the Starbucks. Where he is promptly tackled around the knees by a small child.

 

"Stiles!"

 

"Grady?" Stiles blinks down in surprise as Grady, hugging Stiles' thighs, beams up at him.

 

"Hi!" Grady exclaims. Stiles is confused. He looks to Derek, then behind Grady to the woman sitting at the table nearest them.

 

Claudia Stilinski, well, Claudia Gajos now, is sitting calmly in a chair and sipping from a coffee mug, as if nothing out of the ordinary is happening. Stiles locks eyes with her, seeing those brown eyes somewhere other than old pictures and mirrors for the first time in more than a decade. His throat grows dry and his heart speeds up. Derek squeezes his hand. Stiles looks back down at Grady.

 

"What brings you here, kid?" he asks.

 

"Mommy was coming to visit you and asked if I wanted to come," Grady says. "I brought my Batmobile to show you!" He waves an arm backwards and, sure enough, when Stiles looks back to the table there's a toy Batmobile sitting next to a half eaten muffin.

 

"Wow, that's awesome, Grady," Stiles says. "Why don't you show it to Derek first? He likes Batman too. I have to talk to your mommy first." Grady peers up at Derek.

 

"You really like Batman?" he asks.

 

"I think Superman is my favourite," Derek says. "But Batman is also really cool."

 

"Batman has a better car," Grady says.

 

"He does," Derek agrees. "Why don't you show me?"

 

"Okay!" Grady exclaims. He lets go of Stiles and rushes off to get his toy.

 

"Dad didn't say anything about her saying anything about bringing him," Stiles says under his breath.

 

"I'll keep him distracted," Derek says. They both smile at Grady when he returns with the Batmobile and his muffin. Derek walks him over to a nearby table with a quick kiss to Stiles' cheek. Stiles watches them go, and then squares his shoulders and turns to face his mother. She doesn't say or do anything when Stiles walks over to her table and sits down in Grady's empty chair. She just looks at him.

 

Stiles has a hard time looking at her, but he doesn't let himself look away. He's faced scarier things in his lifetime, more than his fair share, he will not be cowed by this woman.

 

"You got tall," Claudia finally says. Hearing his mother's voice again after so long makes something hurt in Stiles' chest, but he does his best to not let anything show on his face.

 

"Yeah, well," he says. "Amazing what a difference ten years makes." He leans back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. A part of him wants this to be a happy reunion, wants to throw himself into his mother's arms and cry in joy and relief that she's been returned to him after so long away. The larger, and more rational, part of him can't stand the thought of touching her after what she's done to him. It’s quite the struggle, because she still _looks_ like the woman he remembers caring for him and loving him as a child, the woman he's been missing all these years.

 

But she's also the woman who threw him away without a moment's notice and without any regard to his feelings.

 

"I should've known you'd turn out sarcastic," Claudia says. "Is Grady okay over there with your little friend?"

 

"Boyfriend," Stiles corrects her, and doesn't miss the way her eyes narrow at that. "And he's fine. Derek won't let anything happen to him." Claudia picks up her mug and takes a sip from it.

 

"Boyfriend, huh," she says. "Last I heard you were obsessed with that girl in your class, the redhead. Natalie Martin's daughter, wasn't it?" Stiles is stunned into silence for a minute. He's surprised she remembers that, or that she even cares.

 

"Uh, no," Stiles says. "That was never happening. We're just friends now."

 

"Oh," Claudia says. This is not what Stiles expected out of this conversation. He looks over at Derek, who he knows can hear all of this, and they lock eyes. Derek shrugs then turns back to Grady, who is pointing something out on the toy Batmobile.

 

"So you're gay, then," Claudia says, and Stiles turns back to her. "Didn't see that one coming."

 

"Bi, actually," Stiles corrects her, narrowing his eyes at her. "But you don't really care about that, do you?"

 

"Of course I do," Claudia says. "Why wouldn't I?"

 

"Why would you?" Stiles counters. "You left. You _played dead_ for over ten years. Why should I think you care one iota about me or who I decide to date?"

 

"You're my son," Claudia says. Stiles lets his arms fall down by his side and he grips the seat of his chair with both hands. He has to fight off the urge to laugh hysterically, because, what? A quick look over at Derek lets him know that Stiles isn't the only one who can't really believe what he's hearing.

 

"There is so much wrong with that I'm not even sure where to start," Stiles says. "Let's move past that, because we both know you don't care about me. You faked your own death to get away from me, let's not pretend that my being your son actually means anything to you." Over the past months, Stiles has come to terms with the fact that his mother doesn't love him anymore (if she ever really had), and he doesn't like knowing that but he has to live with it. It still hurts him inside when Claudia doesn't deny it, though. She just takes another sip from her coffee mug. Stiles has to squash the urge to slap the mug out of her hand.

 

"Before," Stiles says, and swallows hard to break up the thickness in his throat. "Before we get to why you wanted to talk to me in the first place, I just want to know why. Why weren't me and Dad enough for you back then? Why did you just leave? Why did you leave the way that you did? Just… why? That's all I want to know."

 

"That's… complicated, Stiles," Claudia says on a sigh.

 

"Bullshit," Stiles says. "I'll give you that it probably wasn't a simple choice to decide to leave in the first place. But you made us think you threw yourself off a cliff! You let us think you were dead! For over ten years!" Stiles is getting worked up now; and also pretty loud, if the scandalized look from the woman sitting at a nearby table is anything to go by. Stiles clears his throat and tries to calm himself.

 

"I know why you came back," he says. "I want to know why you left."

 

"You know why I came back?" Claudia asks, one eyebrow raised.

 

"My boyfriend spoke to your boyfriend," Stiles says. "You only came back here to get your old identity and to get a divorce. That doesn't tell me anything about why you left in the first place, or why you pretended to be dead this whole time." Claudia seems calm as she watches Stiles from across the table. Her face shows very little emotion, which is starting to weird Stiles out a bit. He can't remember her ever being this calm around him when she was actually interacting with him.

 

"Well, yes," Claudia says. "I couldn't risk my marriage to Perry not being legal, for whatever reason. Or have it end up being bigamy, depending on the limitations of my new identity. It's better this way."

 

"Oh, well, as long as it works out well for you," Stiles quips. "So you didn't think me or Dad would be bothered by you coming back from the dead? Or was that just not on your radar at all?"

 

"Honestly, I thought you'd have both gotten over it by now," Claudia says. "It's been over ten years, after all." Stiles briefly feels his soul leave his body for a second.

 

What. Even. The. Fuck.

 

"I…" he says. "I'm honestly not sure how to respond to that. You thought that me and Dad, two people who loved you and who considered you _very_ important to us, would just 'get over' you killing yourself?"

 

"Yes?" Claudia says. "I thought it would make a cleaner break that way. No loose ends. I'll admit now that it made for more of a legal mess than I was anticipating. But to be fair, I wasn't expecting to ever get married again so I didn't factor that into my planning anywhere."

 

"Right, okay," Stiles says. "Just… give me a second." He pushes himself to his feet and walks over to Derek's table on slightly shaky legs. Derek's eyebrows are pulled down in a deep frown and Grady is playing a game on Derek's phone, which explains how quiet he's been this whole time.

 

"You heard all that, right?" Stiles asks Derek. "I'm not just hallucinating this?"

 

"That she thought you and your dad would just get over her killing herself?" Derek asks. "No, I heard that."

 

"Right, just checking," Stiles says. He turns and returns to Claudia's table. Claudia watches him warily as he sits back down. "Okay. I guess I didn't just stroke out, please continue."

 

"Does your father know how strange you are?" Claudia asks.

 

"Oh yeah, he's well aware," Stiles says. "He's been here all along so he's very familiar with it."

 

"Anyway, putting that aside, I really did want to talk to you," Claudia says.

 

"No, no," Stiles says, pointing a finger at Claudia. "Not putting that aside. I really want to know what the thought process was about faking your own death via suicide. Why suicide? Why let us both think that you'd hated your life so much that you wanted to end it yourself? Were you trying to get back at us for something? Are you just that much of a sociopath? What?" Claudia blinks at Stiles in mild surprise. Stiles wishes he had something in his hands he could fiddle with. He ends up settling for mangling a napkin that has been left on the table.

 

"Stiles," Claudia says.

 

"No, answer the questions," Stiles demands.

 

"The idea just popped into my head," Claudia says. "I really wanted out of that life. I was feeling trapped and suffocated. I really wasn't expecting to be with your father for so long, and then there was you to deal with. I just needed to get away. So I figured faking my own death would let me start over somewhere fresh. New name, new identity, new life, less responsibilities. Of course, I had to find a way to die that wouldn't leave a body behind. I'd read about people committing suicide by throwing themselves into the sea, and their bodies were never found. Figured that was a good way to do it."

 

"So the suicide idea was, what, a whim?" Stiles asks. "And you didn't spare one thought over what kind of effect that would have on your husband and son? Do you know we both blamed ourselves _for years_ after you were gone?" Stiles is nearly vibrating in his seat in rage. "Do you know that Dad barely coped with what happened? _I_ barely coped with what happened? That I spent years after worrying that Dad would do the same thing? That I would lose him too one day and never know why? _Do you know how that feels?_ "

 

"To be perfectly honest, I never really thought about it," Claudia says. The bland way she says it and the blank mask of her face make Stiles see red. He's not entirely sure what's happening right now, blood rushing in his ears and breath blowing in and out of his lungs. He starts rising from his chair, almost without thinking, but is almost instantly pushed back down by two strong hands on his shoulders. Stiles snaps out of it and looks up to find Derek towering over him, glaring daggers at Claudia.

 

Now she's showing some emotion: some sort of bewildered fear.

 

Stiles struggles to calm himself, gets his breathing under control. Derek lets go and pulls over a chair to sit next to Stiles. Grady, Stiles notices, stands next to Claudia's chair, looking at everyone with wide eyes.

 

"I think this conversation got a bit more excited than it needed to," Derek says mildly, gaze never wavering, in full Alpha Leader mode now.

 

"Right," Claudia says. "Maybe we should just wrap this up." A part of Stiles doesn't want to wrap this conversation up, it wants to keep pressing and poking until Claudia finally gives up some acceptable answers for what she did. Something more concrete than 'I couldn't deal'. That same part of him also wants to flip the table and start shouting. Another part of him realizes, with a sinking feeling, that he really isn't going to get any answers he'll find acceptable. No matter what kind of reasons Claudia gives for doing what she did, they aren't going to be enough for all the pain she's put Stiles and Dad through. It's an extra layer of 'fuck you' to them that Claudia doesn't seem to think she's done anything wrong.

 

Stiles swears that he doesn't remember his mother being this detached and heartless. Though, even now as he's sitting there, it slowly sinks in that the few memories of his mother he'd held so dear all these years were so few because they so rarely happened. He'd always thought that he'd blocked out most of the better memories because of grief or some sort of extended trauma. But maybe there just weren't that many. Now, he's able to pull up memory after memory of his mother ignoring him, or being angry with him, or just plain being annoyed with him. Turns out his grief and guilt made him block out most of the unfavourable memories.

 

"Right," Stiles says. "So, in conclusion…" He pauses and looks towards Grady, who is watching him with wide blue eyes. Stiles instantly scraps the speech he'd put together in his head. Claudia is clearly a horrible person, from Stiles' point-of-view, but she's also Grady's mother. Stiles doesn't know what her relationship with Grady is like (maybe it's better than the one she'd had with Stiles, Grady seems more normal than Stiles ever had, that has to count for something), and Grady no doubt loves his mother. It wouldn't be fair to him to unleash a whole tirade about Claudia in his presence, no matter how much better it would make him feel.

 

Empathy: something Stiles clearly inherited from his father.

 

"I just want to say that I think what you did was horrible and awful and very wrong," Stiles says. "Basically it was one of the worst things you could've ever done, and you'll never understand how much you've hurt me and Dad by doing that. And the next time you do something like this, because I have no confidence that you've suddenly become a decent person in the past ten years, I hope it goes horribly wrong for you. Your new family seems great, you absolutely don't deserve them." Claudia's gaze doesn't waver during the whole speech, and her face slowly goes more blank the longer Stiles talks. Stiles doesn't think his words have had the effect he'd wanted them to have, but either way, he'd needed to say them.

 

There's a minute of silence and then Stiles nods once. He's getting ready to stand up when Claudia speaks again.

 

"There's still the matter I wanted to talk to you about in the first place, Stiles," she says. "It's about my wedding with Perry." Stiles and Derek share a confused look and turn to Claudia as one.

 

"Your wedding?" Stiles asks.

 

"I'm gonna be a ring bear!" Grady announces suddenly.

 

"That's nice?" Stiles says.

 

"Yes," Claudia says. "I was wondering if you would come. Perry has an opening for an extra groomsman, you could be part of the wedding party. Spend some more time with Grady and get to know him. You're his big brother, after all." Stiles blinks once, twice, three times. He looks at his mother, looks at Grady, looks at Derek, looks behind himself, and then looks back at his mother.

 

Then he bursts out laughing.

 

"Are you serious?" he asks incredulously, once he stops laughing. "Are you seriously inviting me to your wedding right now?"

 

"Yes," Claudia says. "You're my son; it would be odd if you weren't there."

 

"Oh my sweet baby Zeus, you are actually insane," Stiles says. "You are completely out of touch with reality if you even _think_ that I'd be interesting in being anywhere near you after this. After what you put me and Dad through. The only reason I came to see you today is because I wanted answers. I didn't really get any, but I guess that's the best I'm gonna get and I'm gonna have to live with that. I think I'd like a relationship with Grady, but I won't be going through you to get it. Holy shit." This time he does stand up, Derek following suit. Stiles reaches into his the pocket of his jeans and pulls out the keys to the Jeep.

 

"You can have these back," he says, dropping them on the table in front of Claudia. She looks down at them in surprise. "I don't want them anymore. I'll see about maybe getting Perry's number sometime. Like I said: I'd like to get to know Grady. I don't want to hear from you again."

 

With that, he turns around and starts walking out of the Starbucks.

 

"Bye, Stiles!" Grady calls. "Bye, Derek!"

 

"Stiles," Claudia calls after him, but by then he's already outside.

 

He leads the way over to the Camaro and climbs into the passenger seat, Derek gets in behind the wheel. They sit there in silence for a few minutes. Stiles wonders if Claudia will come out after him, but she doesn't. He feels a lump growing in his throat. This feels like the closing chapter on a very rocky part of his life, and he's not quite sure how to feel about that.

 

He practically just disowned the mother who threw him away when he was a child. How do you learn about dealing with something like that?

 

"Do you want to go somewhere else?" Derek asks, breaking the heavy silence. "Or do you just want to go home?"

 

"I think…" Stiles says. "I want to go to the beach." Derek nods and starts the car.

 

Stiles bursts into tears as soon as they hit the road and cries the whole way to the shore, one hand held tightly in Derek's and the other wiping at his eyes.

 

It feels clean.


	14. Epilogue

_When John held his son for the first time, he couldn't believe this tiny, wrinkly thing actually belonged to him._

 

_He also never knew that he could ever fall in love so fast._

 

_He looked into his little boy's cloudy blue-grey eyes and knew that he would give his life for him. There would never be anyone else in his life that would ever be as important to him as this tiny human being. This was what John had been waiting his entire life for._

 

_"What do you think, kid?" John asked. "I think we'll do alright."_

 

***

 

**-five years later-**

 

"So I've got two sleeper-thingies, two hats, two pacis, and two pairs of those hand-sock-thingies," Scott says, rifling through a plastic bag as he walks into the room. "I'm sure I've missed something, but it can't be too important because I don’t remember."

 

"I'm sure Derek will remind us if you have," Stiles says. "It's his day to be functional."

 

"Shoes?" Scott asks.

 

"They aren't anywhere even close to walking, why would they need shoes?" Stiles asks.

 

"Something for whatever you kids are into these days," Dad says. "Aesthetics?"

 

"Can you still lump me into 'you kids' if I have kids of my own now?" Stiles asks.

 

"When you get to Grandpa status, everyone under 45 is 'you kids'," Dad says. "Scott, pass me one of those sleepers, I'll get this one dressed."

 

"Dad, you're barely over 50," Stiles says.

 

"I stand by what I said," Dad says. Stiles chuckles and turns his attention to the baby lying in his arms. On the other side of the room, Dad has another baby cradled in one arm as Scott hands him a tiny sleeper.

 

"Is Melissa coming by before we go?" Stiles asks as Scott comes over to hand him the other sleeper.

 

"She said she'll get some pizza and meet us at the house," Scott says. "Figures you guys could use one easy meal before you're left to fend for yourselves."

 

"Your mother is a saint," Stiles says. Someone knocks on the doorframe to the room and everyone looks up. Derek and Isaac are standing in the doorway, each holding a car seat.

 

"We're ready to go when you are," Derek says. "And look who we found hanging out in the lobby." Grady pokes his head around the doorframe and gives a huge wave.

 

"Hiya!" He exclaims.

 

***

 

_Stiles didn't end up going to Claudia and Perry's wedding._

 

_Claudia tried to contact him through his dad a few more times, but it ended up being a few years before he actually spoke to her again. (Which ended up being around the time of Stiles and Derek's own wedding, which Claudia hadn't been invited to because Stiles hadn't wanted to deal with all that and plan a wedding at the same time. The only Kirkland in attendance at the Stilinski-Hale wedding was Grady, which was all Stiles would allow.)_

 

_Stiles actually talked to Perry more often than Claudia, but only in regards to contact with Grady._

 

_Almost immediately after the wedding, which took place a month after Stiles and Claudia's meeting at the Starbucks, Grady started talking with Stiles and Derek via Perry. That eventually evolved into Grady staying over at Stiles and Derek's apartment for visits._

 

_"I feel like a custodial parent picking my kid up from a drop-off point," Stiles said once, about a year after the visits started becoming regular. He was behind the wheel of his new car, a gently used Toyota, on his way to pick Grady up from the McDonald's in Beacon Heights. Derek was sitting in the passenger seat and texting various pack members. "Oh hell, that's what I've turned into, isn't it?"_

 

_"Well, after seeing your mother in action, I really can't see her bothering to help you maintain a relationship with Grady without her getting something out of it," Derek said. "Why not free childcare?"_

 

_That lasted through the rest of Stiles' time at university, and became so common that when Stiles and Derek finally bought their own house they gave Grady his own room._

 

_Sometimes it annoyed Stiles that he was basically being used as an unpaid babysitter, but he did genuinely enjoy getting to know his little brother. Not to mention that this arrangement allowed Stiles to keep a better eye on the whole situation, so that he would notice when (Stiles was never the optimistic sort) things started going sour on the Claudia front._

 

***

 

"Hey, Grady!" Stiles says. "You with us today?"

 

"Yup," Grady says. "Mom brought me over to see the babies, and she said I could stay if you all were alright with that." Stiles and Derek share a look over Grady's head.

 

"We have no problem with you staying for a bit," Stiles says. "But if you're coming back to the house with us you'll have to stay the night because no one'll be able to drive you back. Let your mom know and make sure it's alright with her before we leave." Grady nods and disappears from the doorway, Stiles hears running footsteps going down the hall.

 

Grady is ten years old now, the same age Stiles had been when Claudia left him, and Stiles is worried. He hasn't really spoken to Claudia much at all since their meeting five years ago, but through conversations with Grady and Perry he's been able to pick up some clues that not all is happy in the Kirkland household.

 

When Grady was younger, Stiles got the sense that there wasn't much exciting going on at home, but now that he's older he's starting to pick up on things. Either that or Claudia is losing interest in him now that he's older and there are more concrete things for him to actually pick up on. Sometimes he tells Stiles or Derek that he feels like Claudia doesn't like him much anymore; that she won't take the time to play with him or even ask him about his day. It seems like she's also getting annoyed with him more often, and with Perry.

 

After some extensive therapy and soul-searching, Stiles has a clearer picture of his own childhood, and can recognize these signs as what had eventually led up to Claudia leaving him and his father. (Maybe with more anger and frustration towards him on Claudia's part since Stiles' ADHD, and all the complications that came with it, had made him a more difficult child than Grady. Compared to Stiles, Grady is practically a saint.)

 

He truly believes that's a matter of when, and not if, Claudia will leave again, and he's doing his best to be prepared to help Grady through it when it happens. One consolation is that she won't try to fake her own death again. That's not really the kind of thing you can get away with more than once. There's also a further complication because it almost seems as if Perry himself has one foot out the door on the whole affair. Stiles at least had his father when Claudia left them, Grady seems to have completely failed on the parental lottery.

 

Grady does seem relatively well-adjusted, but Stiles is still worried.

 

Also it's entirely possible that Derek is making plans to secretly adopt Grady because, though he never says anything, Stiles knows that he's also worried.

 

***

 

_Stiles and Derek waved as Perry led Grady away from them and over to his car on the other side of the Beacon Heights Starbucks parking lot._

 

_It had been another successful weekend stay and, as always, Stiles and Derek were sad to see the boy go._

 

_"I require fancy overly-priced coffee to drown my sorrows," Stiles announced. "You in?"_

 

_"Y'know, I feel like every visit these days we're just gonna get a call to keep Grady with us and not drop him off at all," Derek said, following Stiles into the Starbucks._

 

_"You sound like you wouldn't mind that," Stiles said._

 

_"I really wouldn't," Derek said. "I worry about him every time he leaves us. Which is stupid because I'm pretty sure his parents aren't actually a danger to him. Physically, anyway."_

 

_"Yeah," Stiles said. He picked out a table while Derek went to the counter to get them drinks. He was back ten minutes later._

 

_"I really wish..." Derek said. He trailed off and sipped at his coffee. Stiles narrowed his eyes at him and poked him in the shoulder until he responded. "Okay, okay, stop." He smacked at Stiles' hand. "I'm just saying, I wish we could have kids in the house that we wouldn't have to return after a set amount of time."_

 

_"Derek Hale," Stiles said, wide grin spreading across his face. "Are you asking me to have your babies?"_

 

_"Not when you ask like that, I'm not," Derek said, but he was smiling too._

 

***

 

Emily Stilinski-Hale yawns widely as Dad starts wrangling her tiny arms and legs into a bright green sleeper. Ethan Stilinski-Hale, still lying in Stiles' arms, is dead-to-the-world asleep and doesn't make a peep as Stiles dresses him in a pastel-yellow sleeper.

 

"Look at that!" Stiles exclaims, showing off his work to Scott, who is watching from over Stiles' shoulder.

 

"Smooth," Scott says. Dad brings Emily over and passes her off to Derek, accepting the car seat Derek hands him in return. Emily is tiny in Derek's arms, more so than Ethan is in Stiles', and it makes Stiles' heart swell up whenever he sees Derek holding one of their – _their –_ children.

 

They've all been in and out of the hospital for the past couple of days, and Stiles can't wait until he can get his whole family home where they can relax.

 

Stiles and Derek are buckling the babies into the car seats, under Dad's watchful eye, when Grady runs back into the room.

 

"Mom says I can leave with you," Grady says. "And she wants to talk to you, Stiles." Stiles shares a look with Derek and turns to face Grady.

 

"Alright," he says. "Come over here and meet your niece and nephew, I'll go down and talk to your mother."

 

"Are you sure?" Derek asks.

 

"Yeah," Stiles says. "I'll be fine."

 

***

 

_Any emissary or magic-user Stiles could find immediately vetoed any plans Stiles came up with to 'have Derek's babies'. All of them said that he wouldn't be able to manage it with the type of magic he used, which was more of an offensive type and not conducive to the type of precision required for any variation of male pregnancy._

 

_He'd had to admit defeat there, and then Cora and Kendra came forward to offer their help. They'd been in a serious relationship for the past few years and had no interest in having children of their own, but they both wanted to help expand the pack and were willing to do this much for their Alpha._

 

_Stiles and Derek took them up on their offer, and realized that they would never be able to repay them._

 

_Kendra was soon pregnant with Stiles and Cora's biological children, who would then be raised by Stiles and Derek, who couldn't have been happier at this new development in their lives._

 

_Soon after the pregnancy reached the second trimester, Stiles and Derek sat Grady down the next time they had him over and let him in on the whole situation._

 

_"I'm gonna be an uncle!" Grady exclaimed, smiling wide and showing off the gap where his two front teeth should've been._

 

_"That's right," Stiles said. And because it was likely that one or both babies could end up being born werewolves, they started making plans to let Grady in on Beacon Hills' supernatural secret. They'd had enough slipups and near misses over the past few years that Grady had ended up picking up on the existence of a secret, so he knew something was up. But Stiles wanted to wait until Grady was old enough to where keeping a secret that big from his parents wouldn't cause him any undue stress. Because there was no way that Stiles was letting Claudia and Perry in on things._

 

***

 

Stiles arrives in the hospital lobby and instantly spots Claudia sitting in the waiting room closest to the front entrance. She doesn't notice him until he's standing right beside the chair she's sitting in.

 

"Claudia," he says. She looks up at him. He hasn't seen her up close in the five years she's been back. She doesn't look any different than she did back then.

  

"Stiles," Claudia says, getting up. "Grady isn't with you?"

 

"He's getting to know the twins," Stiles says. "We might not be able to have him at the house without much warning for a bit while we get everyone settled. Hopefully we'll have everything running somewhat smoothly after a few months." Claudia nods.

 

"Yes, two babies," she says. "I couldn't even imagine what that would be like. I don't suppose you have a picture of them?"

 

"Not for you," Stiles says. Stiles' relationship with Claudia will forever be a negative aspect in Stiles' life, he's made his peace with that. Honestly, if it weren't for Grady, Stiles would have cut Claudia out of his life altogether right after she came back from the dead. He understands that he needs to be in contact with Claudia in order to get access to his little brother, but that doesn't mean that he has to include her in all aspects of his life.

 

The idea of not having his mother there with him on his wedding day, one of the happiest days in his entire life, had caused him some grief at the time. But he knows that he wouldn't've been able to enjoy the day at all if she'd had been there.

 

Claudia doesn't deserve to be a part of Stiles' life after the way she'd treated him by throwing him away and trampling all over his feelings.

 

That had become especially clear to him only two days earlier once he'd gotten to see his children for the first time. Cora had been the only non-medical person allowed in the room during the birth, so Stiles and Derek had paced the waiting room and waited with the rest of the pack. It had been a stressful experience, with Stiles' anxiety hitting critical levels and Derek being able to hear _every sound_ coming from the birth and not being able to help his packmate with her pain. But it had all been worth it once two nurses came out and presented them with two babies that they would be able to take home and care for and love forever.

 

Stiles remembers standing together with Derek and looking at both of his children, feeling the vulnerable weight in their arms, and being filled with a love he never knew he could feel. He remembers knowing, with more certainty than he'd ever felt before, that he would not take this responsibility lightly and that he would love and protect his children until the day he died.

 

Looking at Claudia right now, Stiles has to wonder what she'd felt like on the day he was born, on the day Grady was born. He decides not to ask, there are some things he's better off not knowing.

 

"So, no involvement with your university graduation, or wedding," Claudia says. "And now I don't get to be in my grandchildren's lives either? How much longer are you going to punish me for what happened, Stiles?"

 

"Punish you?" Stiles asks. He's prepared for this, all those years of therapy haven't gone to waste. "I'm not punishing you. These are the natural consequences you should've expected to happen after what you pulled. Frankly, you're lucky you even know what's going on in my life at all. It's called setting boundaries, you don't get to abandon me and disregard my feelings and then come swanning back into my life and expect everything to go your way."

 

Claudia is clearly put-out that Stiles isn't letting her get her own way. He's pretty sure that she'd been expecting he welcome her back with open arms when she'd first shown back up five years ago. She obviously couldn't care less about his father, who she doesn't ever mention, but the way she keeps trying to reconnect with him makes it seem like she actually thought he'd want her back.

 

He's never entirely sure these days about how much Claudia loves him, or ever did love him. He suspects he'll never truly know if she's genuinely interested in him and his life, or if she's just trying to play some kind of part for whatever reason. Or, even, if she's just trying her best to exert the control she thinks she should have over him.

 

Whatever the case, Stiles knows that she's not someone he wants in his, or his children's, lives.

 

"Stiles!" Grady comes jogging into the lobby, Derek following slowly behind him. Grady stops by Stiles' side and looks up at him, beaming. "Your babies are so cute! I'm gonna ride in the back seat with them, okay?" Stiles smiles down at him.

 

"I'll see you later then, Grady," Claudia says, interrupting the moment. "Call home before you go to bed." She turns around and heads for the front doors without waiting for a response.

 

"Bye, Mom!" Grady calls. "I'm gonna go back and help carry stuff to the car." He runs back off down the hall with Derek and Stiles watching him.

 

"Is it bad that I don't actually feel anything about her anymore?" Stiles asks. "I just worry about Grady now. Did you see that goodbye?"

 

"She's so detached," Derek says. "And that, plus everything she's done? I'd say you're allowed to feel whatever you want."

 

"Yeah," Stiles says.

 

"C'mon, let's go take our babies home," Derek says. He slings an arm around Stiles' shoulders and they both start walking back to the hospital room, where their family is waiting for them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AND WE'RE DONE OMG!!!
> 
> I can't believe I actually wrote this whole thing and it had daily updates!!!! First time I've ever managed that!!!
> 
> I'd like to give a big thanks to everyone who read this and liked it and left comments and kudos. You guys are awesome and made this experience so worthwhile!!
> 
> :D :D :D


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